Fast-paced thrillers about quests for ancient artefacts are popular at the moment. This one centres around an Egyptian device supposed to have the power to predict a person’s death and change destiny. I found it a little improbable towards the end, but if you can suspend your disbelief far enough it’s worth it. Set in the 1970s, a time of great upheaval for Egypt, when control of the past, the famous history of Pharaohs and Gods, can mean political triumph, no-one can be trusted. A human story of love, loss, fear and doubt is coupled with a race-against-time to fulfil, or disprove, an ancient prophecy. Exciting stuff.
Alexandria, Egypt, 1977. During a clandestine dive to an old shipwreck, archaeologist Isabella Warnock unearths an artefact unlike anything she has ever seen: an astrarium, a powerful ancient device rumoured to have shaped the destinies of pharaos and kings since the beginning of time. But her discovery comes at a terrible price, and it falls to her husband Oliver to keep the priceless object safe. Grief-stricken, Oliver refuses to believe in the astrarium's mysterious significance - until he finds himself up against someone willing to go to any lengths to obtain the powerful device. Catapulted into an extraordinary world of conspiracy and Egyptology, where age-old sorcery and ancient legends clash violently with modern-day ambitions and the gritty world of oil exploration, Oliver has little time to get the astrarium to safety, before he, too, pays with his life...
