“Villains!!! Desecrators of the mummies! You break the sacred rest of the dead and violate the bodies of the priests and pharaohs! But their wrath will come upon you! One of you will be the avenger! He will stretch out his hands to you, drag you into his grave and devour your souls so that you can never enter the next life!” The accusing words of the Egyptian servant have not yet faded when an ice-cold hand seems to reach for Sir Jasper Hartnell’s heart. He sinks into his chair, white as a sheet, and the guests’ food sticks in their throats. The grand reception that the long-serving professor of Egyptology has organised in London for friends and personalities, colleagues and companions from his academic career is over. The beginning, however, is marked by the attacks of the “dark strangler”, who begins his sinister assaults on Egyptologists a few days later: a cloaked figure of great strength, smelling of resin and herbs and whispering strange words … and his hands bring death.