Customer Reviews

Year of the Hyenas: A Novel of Murder in Ancient Egypt

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I stumbled on this book, and now can hardly wait till a sequel comes out. The protaganist isn't very likable at first, then you realize that he really is an honest man...and not perfect.

The descriptions of the time and place in Egypt were woven into the story, occasionally an author throws more historical information at you and you find yourself distracted from the plot. Geagley weaves a tale and the context without doing the "look at me, look at how much research I've done" interferance.

I particularly liked how he ends the tail, I saw parts of it coming, but not the whole surprise.

Really worth your time if you like mysteries--and historical settings.

Year of the Hyenas is a breezy, flavorful murder mystery that is sure to become an ongoing series. It reminds me of Lindsey Davis's Falco series, about a detective in ancient Rome. Falco's counterpart in ancient Egypt is Semerket, a boozer with a history of telling the truth despite the consequences. His bingeing and misery stem from a divorce; his wife left him because he could not father a child--a big deal in ancient Egypt, and therefore a smart move by the author who uses the setting as a foundation for characterization. The setting is the novel's strength, as Thebes is unveiled in all its glory and grime. The weakness is the slow pace: The first half of the novel hardly advances the storyline. It is also predictable. The reader knows before Semerket what is really transpiring. As a mystery/detective story, The Year of the Hyenas is average; however, as historical fiction, it is exemplary, providing a vivid description of ancient Egypt and the people who populated it.

Historical mysteries generally find a soft spot in my reading-they are great diversions. The Egyptian historical mystery genre already has at least three excellent authors with their own excellent series and now Brad Geagley had debuted with what promises to be another exciting series of the Old World.

In "Year of the Hyenas" Geagley presents Semerket, an anti-hero before his time,which happens to be 1153 BC! He's an investigator all right, but an unlikely one. A boozer, Semeket has some good credentials in the investigating business, but drink and women have taken their toll and "down and out" probably best describes him.


Still, he's a character that we have no trouble respecting, once the story gets going. It's a murder investigation. A priestess has been found dead and with all the political, religious, social, and economic issues involved, actually the authorities really aren't interested in having the facts uncovered, much less an actual conviction. But "conviction" is what Semerket is about and, naturally, as the story unfolds, we find the usual stumbling blocks and obstacles, all of which Semerket is eventually able to negotiate.

Geagley avoids being "too factual" and presents a fast moving-and actually delightful-read.

When the body of a blind, elderly priestess turns up on the opposite side of the Nile from where she lived, the mayors of the eastern and western halves of Thebes are at loggerheads, each declaring the crime to be in his own jurisdiction. As a compromise, the vizier appoints Semerket, a misanthropic, embittered "follower of Set" who has no respect for anything but the truth, to investigate the death.

In the process Semerket, who is trying to get over the loss of his beloved wife to another man, finds mystery and intrigue enough to drive her from his mind, at least temporarily. The "harem conspiracy" to kill Ramesses III and place his son by his wife Tiya on the throne is a historical fact, and Geagley imaginatively reconstructs the circumstances surrounding it. Interestingly, there is an article in the March/April 2006 issue of Archaeology magazine that discusses the possibilty of an unidentified mummy found in 1886 being the prince who was to have benefited from the conspiracy, and only a couple of months ago I was reading a book called Affairs and Scandals in Ancient Egypt which discussed the rivalry between the two mayors and the organized tomb robbing that is also dealt with in Year of the Hyenas.

In addition to the painstaking historical detail, Geagley also creates interesting, believable and sympathetic characters, from the young Crown Prince whose succession is endangered to Semerket himself, as well as women such as Queen Tiya herself and the promiscuous, frustrated Hunro, whose dream is to leave the tomb-makers' village and set herself up in Thebes.

One of my only criticisms is that someone must have informed Geagley that it was obligatory to have at least one graphic sex scene, which only detracted from the plot and could easily have been deleted.

Geagley injects the tropes of the hard-boiled detective story into the milieu of the civilization of ancient Egypt - and pulls it off! God-haunted Thebes during the reign of Ramses III is a profoundly alien place to the modern mind, but human nature doesn't change, and the theme of a lone man wedded to truth pitted against pervasive and powerful corruption held my interest all the way through, in spite of (or maybe because of) the unfamiliar setting. It was even better that the lone man was a deeply flawed human being wrestling with his own problems while trying to solve an ever-widening mystery - and survive multiple attempts on his life.

Geagley's prose is lean and forceful, his characters are memorable, and his rendering of ancient Egypt is colorful and convincing. Highly recommended. I look forward eagerly to the next installment in the series.

From my long-time reading of the period murder mystery genre, I've found it easy to find "cozies" which are fun to read, but provide little depth to their treatment of their periods. This book is the exception to that rule, and gives us a work which is at once character- as well as plot-driven, faithful to the period, and generous with an accuracy of history. It was a struggle for me to make the book last more than a couple of days, so engaging is the plot. Among all those facets commending the work, the most important for me was what I can only feel is an authenticity of the psyche of the protagonist and supporting characters. The author's forgoing of psychological anacronism in his character development gives this work a depth and substance not often found in the mystery genre at all. I eagerly await future volumes in this series, and recommend it without reservation.

Not to be confused with "The Season of the Hyaenas" by PC Doherty. (Hyenas referring to war/ turmoil.) This is another mystery/detective book, quite good. Set in the reign of Ramses III, and having to do with an (I believe) actual plot on his life. It has a sequel, "Day of the False King."
I was surprised to see how many people raved over this book, I didn't think it was THAT great, but as many pointed out, the author didn't throw a lot of history at you, in fact reading it I felt it really could have taken place anywhere, anytime, and he just occasionally remembered to have them refer to appropriage gods or clothing. There was no real sense of "being there." But as a detective story it was a quick fun read.

In 1153 BC Thebes, the Clerk of Investigations and Secrets Semerket is delegated with finding out who killed the popular much-loved Priestess Hetephras. Unbeknownst to Semerket is that his superiors selected him because they assume that the alcoholic acrimonious loser will fail. Then they can fire him for incompetence, but not before they blame him to the masses who demand the killer face vigilante justice; the pathetic Semerket would make a fine substitute as far as his bosses are concerned.

However, shockingly Semerket digs deep and soon uncovers tomb robbers that he begins to believe may be connected to his murder investigation. As he uncovers more clues, he begins to realize that this simple murder of a cherished figure and related robberies are just the surface covering up a conspiracy that he believes places the Pharaoh in peril. As Semerket drinks to ease his fears of what to do without losing his head, his decision making process is stolen from him when his beloved becomes a target.

YEAR OF THE HYENAS is a terrific Ancient Egypt police procedural starring an interesting protagonist; readers will agree with Semerket's superiors that he is the last person they figure capable of solving anything. Semerket is an unpleasant grouch who makes a perfect foible for the conspirators except that no one realized how he would go the extra tomb or two to solve the case. Although the prose reads at times deliberately archaic giving the investigation an ancient feel that is difficult to follow, fans will enjoy Brad Geagley's fine historical who-done-it.

Harriet Klausner

I think the bar for Ancient Egyptian mysteries was set to a very high level in recent years by Lynda S. Robinson's series, along with Carol Thurston's _The Eye of Horus_. _Year of the Hyenas_ is somewhere below these, but still worthwhile.

I do have some complaints, of a believability/historical accuracy nature, but the writing was certainly good enough to keep me turning pages. Read it!

rms

I was very surprised as to how much I enjoyed reading this book especially as it was a first in a series and my main interests history wise are not this period. Very interesting and well constructed story.