Customer Reviews

The Lost Army of Cambyses

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

The Lost Army of Cambyses by Paul Sussman is exactly the kind of book to have on a vacation, or on a long haul flight.

Cambyses was a Persian King who conquered Egypt in 525 B.C. thereby becoming the first Pharaoh of the 27th Dynasty. According to the great Greek historian Herodotus, he sent an army of 50,000 men into the desert to subdue an oracle, but the army vanished, apparently buried by a sandstorm.

Around this piece of history the story is masterfully built. It is located in Egypt, and involves the subterranean antiquity trade - the price men are willing to pay for possession of artefacts, but also the distinction of being the discoverer of new sites.

Tara's father is a world-renowned British archaeologist, living in Egypt, and who unexpectedly, and uncharacteristically, invites her to visit. Upon her arrival she finds him dead. She is almost killed the next day, while her attackers shout: "Where is the piece?".

Inspector Khalifa of the Egyptian police force has other gruesome murders that he investigates, and Westerners are killed in several terrorist incidents.

Without giving the plot away - the story leads to the lost army of Cambyses, but with a few delicious twists in the tail. The line of suspense is kept taut throughout the book, and the characters of Tara, Inspector Khalifa and supreme terrorist Sayf al-Tha'r are well-developed. Daniel, the lover, is a but vague, but his role has an unexpected outcome in the tale.

Besides a good whodunit, the book's pleasure lies in two things: the brief but very informative facts given about Egyptology, and the arguments and discussions about the justification for terrorism, in this case, Islamic fundamentalism. It is hard to remain politically non-committal, but Sussman manages to argue both sides with empathy.

This is what is called a "page-turner" and the ideal companion when you want the time to fly by. Enjoy.

It is always an exciting time for me when I find a new author who writes about the subjects I am interested in. This is Paul Sussman's first novel and he certainly seems to have the magical gift of storytelling. The book is based around a well documented event in early history. In 523 BC the Persian Emperor Cambyses sent an army across Egypt's desert to destroy an oracle at Amun. Somewhere in the deserts the army of 50,000 men were destroyed by a sandstorm. The book is set in modern times and there is much murder and mystery involved. Inspector Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor police is brought in to solve the crimes, but even he is amazed by the sting in the tail that this book has in store for the reader. This really is a gripping book, one of the best I have read this year, and I commend it to you.

This is Paul Sussman's debut novel and it takes as its basis a tale the accuracy of which is still the subject of debate between experts .In his book " Histories " the Greek historian Herodatus tells of an army sent from Thebes in Egypt ,by Cambyses the Peersian King whose empire at that time encompassed Egypt.They were despatched across the desert westerly towards what is now Libya and tasked with eliminating a group of tribes rebelling against Persian rule .He recounts the tale of how a massive sandstorm arose and buried the army alive .
There is a short prologue in the days of Cambyses and then the action switches to contemporart Egypt where fragments and relics are emerging that point not merely to the accuracy of Herodatus but to the exact location of the army and the priceless artefacts buried with them .If unearthed these would constitute a discovery to dwarf those of Carter in the Valley of the Kings .
Antique dealers who might know of these clues are being killed mostly by Dravic an utterly ruthless German archaelogist who is a front man for a charisnatic Islamic fundamentalist leader whose interset in the treasure is so its can be sold to finance his anti Western terror campaign .Other parties after the loot are corrupt officials of the British embassy and Lacarge an young Anglo-French archaelogist
Ranged against them are the Egyptian police in the form of dogged chain smoking family man Inspector Yusuf Khalifa who has personal reasons to stop the terror group from gettibng their hands on the treasure ,and the daughter of a murdered British archaelogist who holds ,innocently ,the key to the location of the treasure
The opening is a tad over leisurely but it soon picks up pace and by the half way mark has become a lively and potent thriller ,well characterised and blessed by some fine descriptive writing about the desert and the treacherous nature of its weather
This is a good read and I recommend it to lovers of the adventure yarn

I love thrillers that mix Ancient History/Archaeology into the plot line. The author certainly knows his archaeology and his Egyptian history. For that reason alone, this book is well worth reading. I really wanted to give this book five stars but could not for some technical glitches. For the most part the book is well written, and reasonably well paced. It did keep me turning pages, but there were times when I just had to groan and grit my teeth, and would have tossed the book had it not been for the archaeology. There were just too many coincidences that benefited the characters such as the motor bikes that kept showing up with their keys in the ignition every time the "boy/girl" team needed a quick get away. His portrayal of the terrorist leader was naive and unrealistic, and his portrayal of the British and American "Intelligence operatives" was clunky. Most grating of all, however were the mistakes in the Arabic. For the most part his use of Arabic was done correctly and did ad local flavor to the novel. However, all it takes is one glaring mistake and it blows the entire "will to suspend disbelief" all to hell. There is no such animal in Egypt called a "jamal." An Egyptian would never, ever say that--unless he were trying to impress a westerner who learned a tiny bit of Arabic in Beirut. The proper Egyptian for "Camel" is Gamal. Likewise with the name of the Egyptian Intelligence operative. No self respecting Egyptian would ever be named "Jemal." Correct Egyptian is "Gamal" (with the second syllable lenghtened). I also got some chuckles out of the term 'doctora' when addressing a male PHD. 'doktora' is the fem. form used only to address FEMALE PHDs and MDs. It is never used for a male. The proper form is 'doktour.'
Other than that, though, for a first novel this was a good job. But, before I purchase another of his novels, I would really like to know that the author had at least one other intelligent person read his manuscript to point out the errors and cliches.

Actually, the most fascinating character in this story is Yusuf Khalifa, one of the main characters - a detective. As a westerner, I don't get to read much about good guy Muslims. I know that most Muslims are regular, normal, not-likely-to blow-up-others people, but that's not how many of them are portrayed, especially in thrillers. In this case, Khalifa is a gentle soul, a family man tortured about the fate of his brother, Ali.

The bulk of the story focuses on the action. People have been murdered in order for the bad guys to find the 2500 year old remains of a lost army. The head bad guy is a Muslim terrorist, but the author doesn't paint him as just an evil guy who wants to kill people. There is one of those in this book, but he's not Muslim. No, this terrorist has reasons for being a terrorist. Not that he's sympathetic, exactly, but it makes you think about what would make a rational, caring, intelligent person become a mass murderer for a cause.

There are a few stock characters - there's the damsel in distress, who is the other main character, and there's the love interest. There's also the sinister bureaucrat. They are fairly well portrayed - you feel that the author put a lot of thought into everyone's backstory, which I appreciate.

The author knows a lot about Egyptology (he's a real archaeologist - cool!) and while I don't know enough about the subject to verify its authenticity, it sounded believable and fascinating. The pacing of the story was good. There were slow spots in the right places to help you catch your breath, but I never felt it dragged the story down.

This is a decent thriller. I love Khalifa & am excited to get the next book he's featured in. (The paperback is on order!) I love how Islam is portrayed - the regular people are not maniacs, and even the fanatics have reasons for their fanaticism. While that may not forgive their actions, at least you can see how some get to that point. And if you know what causes people to become like that, then there's hope that changes can happen in society to keep that from happening. My belief is that people don't start evil, and even those who do awful things might not think of themselves as evil. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be stopped, but maybe it's better to divert their slide then to have to deal with them when they've already hit bottom.

Solid 4 stars. The writing is plain & clear, the action is compelling. The characters are well thought out. I don't have any one reason for 4 stars instead of 5, except that it seemed a little regular. But it was good and worth reading and I'm looking forward to the next one.

I really tried to like this but couldn't make it past page 53. I like ancient Egypt and the concept of mingling a modern mystery with an ancient mystery is intriguing but the author just couldn't do the subject matter justice. He's not a bad writer but he's a lousy storyteller, if you understand the difference. His pacing is off. He has no feel for drama. There are no dramatic moments in the first 53 pages despite a couple of deaths. I didn't care what happened to any of these people because there's nothing interesting or likable about them. Caricatures do not make memorable characters. At no point does he make you feel like you're in Egypt even though his descriptive passages are arguably accurate. Nothing is surprising. He goes into long descriptive passages that add nothing to the story and slow the pace. Essentially he writes like a nonfiction writer trying to write fiction for the first time, which is what he's doing.

Overall the story crawled along at what seemed a molasses like pace, it wasn't until the last 1/4 of the book that the story picked up a little, it was somewhat of a chore to stick it out until the end.

I enjoyed the descriptions of the the treks through the desert. Mr. Sussman does well with descriptions and uses an unusual amount of similes. My feeling is that Mr. Sussman became a published author based upon his credentials as an archeologist more so than his ability to tell a compelling tale. Moving on to "The Hidden Oasis" that was published many years later, we see pages and pages of descriptions without moving the plot forward. One hundred pages into it and I could not continue with it. This first book , for me was his best novel. 3 and a half stars. If it were faster paced, I would have given it a better rating.

The author does a great job or intertwining the various characters and subplots in to a very exciting novel with compelling characters.

I liked this book. I was a little concerned that the author is an archeologist, and that the book was over 500 pages. I was worried that it would turn into a textbook, but my fears were unfounded. He puts enough archeological details in to be interesting, but not so many that it overwhelms or bores the reader. I thought it was a very compelling story, although there are some problems. There was a super-villain that was a bit unbelievable, there was one character that went to what I felt were unrealistic lengths to basically get his job back, and there was a James Bond-esqe ending where the bad guys basically say "since you are going to die anyway, we'll tell you our whole plot." It was kind of a cheesy way to get the information across.

As for the GOOD things, (which I believe outweigh the bad) I particularly enjoyed the main character, Inspector Khalifa. He is an interesting person, and I look forward to learning more about him in later books. I thought in general that the book was well written, and that the story never bogs down. I finished it fairly quickly even though it is quite a long book. Also, as other reviewers have noted, Sussman does a great job at portraying both sides of Mid east politics. It's quite refreshing to see a Muslim lead character, and it's an interesting non-judgemental glimpse into that culture that we seldom see today (at least in the US.)

For people who think this is another Dan Brown type book, I have to disagree. Yes, it deals with history and "lost secrets," but Brown really likes to take the reader through the nuts and bolts of cracking codes and solving puzzles, and that's not what this book is about. It is essentially a mystery set in Egypt that deals with some archeological concepts, and ancient artifacts, with a little terrorism thrown in.

All in all, a good first effort from Sussman. I look forward to reading the rest of his books.