The action of this book takes place on the West bank of the Nile at Thebes in Egypt about 2000 BC. Both place and time are incidental to the story. Any other place at any other time would have served as well: but it so happened that the inspiration of both characters and plot was derived from two or three Egyptian letters of the XI Dynasty, found about 20 years ago by the Egyptian Expedition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in a rock tomb opposite Luxor, and translated by Professor (then Mr) Battiscombe Gunn in the Museum's Bulletin.
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Seeking peace after her husband's death, the Ka-priest's daughter Renisenb returns to her father's house on the banks of the Nile.But beneath the calm surface of his prosperous household lurk greed, lust and hate. When the grisly death of the beautiful and venomous concubine Nofret is dismissed as fate, Renisenb becomes increasingly convinced that the source of evil lurks within - and watches as the family's passions explode in murder！
As the wife of an eminent archaeologist, Agatha Christie took part in several expeditions to the Middlle East. Drawing upon this experience and exhaustive research, she wrote this ingenious serial killer mystery set in ancient Egypt 4000 years ago. Though unlike any of her other novels, it still ends with a climax which few will anticipate.
