The Great War has ended at last. No longer must archaeologist Amelia Peabody and her husband, Emerson, the distinguished Egyptologist, fear for the life of their daring son, Ramses, now free from his dangerous wartime obligations to British Intelligence. But in the aftermath of conflict, evil still casts a cold shadow over violence-scarred Egypt. The theft of valuable antiquities from the home of a friend causes great concern in the Emerson household. Ramses's strange encounter with a woman costumed in the veil and gold crown of the goddess Hathor only deepens the mystery. And the brutal death of the suspected thief washes the unsettling affair in blood--setting Amelia on a terrifying collision course with an adversary more fiendish and formidable than any she has ever encountered.