The note with the hieroglyphs was found in the pocket of a man lying dead in an alley. The only other item of interest on him was a piece of jewellery, a reproduction of the Charlemagne talisman, but so well done that Vicky Bliss thought she was being shown the real thing. Vicky didn't know what it meant yet.
What did it mean? The note with the hieroglyphs was found in the pocket of a man lying dead in an alley. The only other item of interest on him was a piece of jewellery, a reproduction of the Charlemagne talisman, but so well done that Vicky Bliss thought she was being shown the real thing. The gold work had been done by a master craftsman; the stones were of top quality synthetic...Vicky didn't know what it meant yet, but ion the sundrenched streets and moonlit courtyards of Rome, she was going to find out - if the dangerously exciting Englishman didn't get in her way!
A writer so popular that the public library has to keep her books under lock and key. - Washington Post Book World
Elizabeth Peters is a pen name of Barbara Mertz, who earned her Ph.D. in Egyptology from the University of Chicago's famed Oriental Institute. Over the course of her fifty-year career she wrote more than seventy mystery and suspense novels, and three nonfiction books on Egypt. She was the recipient of numerous writing awards, including grandmaster and lifetime achievement awards from the Mystery Writers of America, Malice Domestic, and Bouchercon. In 2012 she was given the first Amelia Peabody Award, created in her honor, at the Malice Domestic convention. She died in 2013, leaving a partially completed manuscript of The Painted Queen.