Murder at the Feast of Rejoicing

I would really love to write a review of this book - which was ordered last month and supposedly delivered … But it was not delivered at all ! I ordered another title and since I am enjoying that one would REALLY like you to send me the one named above .

Robinson, holds a PhD in anthropology. Apparently, her husband bet her she could put it to use writing mysteries set in the past. They are about Lord Meren, the "Eyes and Ears of the Pharaoh" (an actual position, sort of a secret service type of job) in the time of King Tutankamun "Murder in the Place of Anubis" is the first in the series, but very hard to find. This series is, to me, the best of all the current ancient Egyptian mystery series, and superior to the current popular ancient Rome series as well. Write more and re-release the older ones, please!!

After being wounded at the conclusion of the previous story, Meren needs to leave Memphis, rest, and recover his health - and not-so-incidentally orchestrate the transfer of extremely secret royal cargo from the former heretic capital city, Horizon of the Aten, to its new resting place in Thebes. What could go wrong during a nice quiet rest on the family estate in Abydos? If you have to ask, you *must* come from a small family. Meren's widowed sister Idut is in charge, training Meren's younger daughters Bener and Isis in estate management - and against Meren's express orders, she's organized a great feast of rejoicing, inviting most of Meren's extended family, including outspoken great-aunt Cherit, Meren's spoiled younger brother Nahkt (called Ra), and widowed Lady Bentana (Meren's female relatives think she'd make him an excellent wife). At the end of the list are the two names Meren least wants to hear this side of the halls of judgement: Hepu and Nebetta, who disowned their son Djet. Meren blames them for the suicide of the cousin who was far closer than his own younger brother. Even their surviving son Sennefer is warped, forever boasting of his sexual conquests while his embittered wife Anhai poisonously points out that he hasn't given *her* a single child in a dozen years of marriage, and threatens divorce. All this doesn't include two or three lawsuits, Anhai's maneuvering to get a good settlement, Hepu's agonizing habit of reading his own proverbs at banquets, Idut's new suitor Wah, Ra's drunken irresponsibility, and the young scribe Nu, who's been hanging around Bener lately - and the typical embarassment of much older relatives treating Meren like a toddler. When one of Meren's more poisonous relatives turns up dead in the grainary, Meren is in charge of the investigation - after all, he's the local lord, and he's the Eyes and Ears of pharaoh anyway. I believe the body count in this story rises to 3 - and if *that* weren't enough, pharaoh himself clandestinely visits the area to check up on the transfer of the cargo. Meren has his hands full persuading Tutankhamun *not* to try to pass himself off as an ordinary nobleman so he can watch the investigation close up. Some of the physical evidence is strange, giving Meren's physician a chance to shine. Kysen, after days of putting up with Meren's family's attitude - 'get rid of the adopted peasant, remarry, and father more sons' - exacts beautiful payback from the worst bully of the pack. Even without Meren's own opinions on the ineffectiveness of torture in interrogation - having suffered it on the orders of Ahkenaten - he tends to encounter cases in this series wherein the suspects' position protects them from such indignities. In the case of some of his more trying relatives, though, he's not above making certain threats - and for any man who thinks improper thoughts about Meren's daughters, Meren gets downright graphic.

Lord Meren is sent home to rest but his sister arranges a family reunion instead. How many of these characters actually come from your own extended family? I recognized the majority from mine . This really makes Lord Meren into a human being rather than an historical personage. The series gets better with each book as I read them.

As an amateur student of Egyptology and one fascinated with the era of the Heretic King Akhenaten and his immediate successors, I must say that Lynda S. Robinson does more than any other author I've ever seen to bring the people, as well as the politics, of the time to clear and shining view. It is so easy to reduce the Egyptian civilization to a few gods, a few mummies, and a bunch of stone edifices, but Dr. Robinson has a gift for turning faces and names into real people, not so different from us. (Her description of Lord Meren's Feast of Rejoicing will have many people ruefully remembering their last family reunion or holiday gathering.) The only, *only* nitpick I have with her interpretation is the way she portrays the Great Royal Wife Ankhesenamun as being antagonistic toward her husband, Tutankhamun, but since she's the Egyptologist, I defer to her better judgment. :)

As far as Lord Meren is concerned, there is not much reason for rejoicing in this entry in Lynda S. Robinson's series of mysteries set in ancient Egypt. The Egyptian noble, the "Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh," has planned a visit to his country estate, away from prying eyes at court. The visit is intended to be a well-earned vacation as well as a smoke screen for an unenviable task - that of moving the mummified bodies of royal relations of the present Pharaoh Tutankhamun to a new temple, where their ka, their spirit, will again lie undisturbed. To cover the seriousness of this mission, one that Tutankhamun's enemies would like to discover, Meren has his son Kysen superintend the transfer while he prepares for a quiet trip to the country. That is the plan. What transpires is far from the intent of a simple visit home, as Meren is soon forced to assume his role as Pharaoh's special agent and solve another mystery, this one very close to home. Robinson's command of her setting (she has a Ph.D. in Anthropology, with an emphasis in Archeology) enables her books to be splendid visual settings as well as rousing good suspense stories. In this entry readers are treated to the intimate details of the running of a Egyptian noble's great estate, and to more of the social customs of the upper class -- some of whom have more class than others. The unveiling of the culprit seems obvious, then another murder is committed, and more death occurs before Meren finds himself face to face with treachery and deceit, two traits that seem to go hand in hand during Tutankhamun's reign. Readers can expect nothing to ever be as it seems in Meren's world, which should keep bookshelves stocked with Robinson's books for some time to come.