Customer Reviews

In The Footsteps: Mummy, The (In the Footsteps of)

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I found this book to be slightly objectionable. There are two concurrent threads running throughout the book. On the left side is a fictional tale about the mummy of Prince Ahmosis of Egypt. When his tomb is entered by grave robbers, they grab the left hand at the wrist and it breaks off. Later, an archeologist named Alfred Travers empties the tomb of all valuables, including the body of Ahmosis, for shipment to a museum. Later, in a western country, the disarticulated hand of Ahmosis is presented to Rachel Winters on her twenty-first birthday. That night she places the hand on her mantle and the body of Ahmosis comes to life in a search for his missing hand.
During the search, Ahmosis brutally kills several humans. While this is happening, his hand continues to increase its activity and Rachel takes it to an archeologist who learns the spells needed to prevent Ahmosis from attacking Rachel. They succeed in reuniting Ahmosis with his hand moments before he attacks Rachel.
On the right side of the book is a series of factual descriptions of mummies, what they are, how they were made and several of the major finds. By itself it is a very accurate statement of what mummies are and what we know about them. The problem in my mind is how the two tales are somehow blurred. Putting them side-by-side is a subtle indication that what is on the left side has some truth to it. Which is nonsense, as several historians have conclusively shown, the curse of the mummy is largely a myth generated by the media. If both threads had to appear in the book, it would have been much better if they had been sequential.