The Case of the Disappearing Dervish Now Available As An Audiobook!

 

Tantor Media just came out with Book Six of my Masked Man of Cairo series, narrated by the talented Curtis Michael Holland!

The Case of the Disappearing Dervish sees Sir Augustus, Moustafa, and Faisal head south to the Sudan. A blurb is below.

 

A religious scandal. A deadly homecoming.

Moustafa Ghani El Souwaim has come far in life. Raised illiterate in a remote village in the Soudan, he set out at sixteen to better himself. His journey took him to the great archaeological sites of Africa, where he became a leading researcher versed in several ancient and modern languages. His life took an even stranger turn when he teamed up with Sir Augustus Wall and his street boy sidekick Faisal to solve murders.

Now there's been a murder in his village. A local religious mendicant has been found bludgeoned to death and Moustafa's cousin, who is in the same religious order, has vanished and is assumed to be the killer. Moustafa must return to his roots to clear his cousin's name and reunite with the family he left behind.

But can Moustafa really go home again after having changed so much, and does that home even want him? 

 

Available wherever audiobooks can be purchased or rented. 

Book Six of The Masked Man of Cairo Out Now!!!

 

It's been a while since I posted, and that's because I've been busy traveling and writing. I have just released The Case of the Disappearing Dervish in ebook and paperback. A blurb is below.

A religious scandal. A deadly homecoming.
Moustafa Ghani El Souwaim has come far in life. Raised illiterate in a remote village in the Soudan, he set out at sixteen to better himself. His journey took him to the great archaeological sites of Africa, where he became a leading researcher versed in several ancient and modern languages. His life took an even stranger turn when he teamed up with Sir Augustus Wall and his street boy sidekick Faisal to solve murders.
Now there’s been a murder in his village. A local religious mendicant has been found bludgeoned to death and Moustafa’s cousin, who is in the same religious order, has vanished and is assumed to be the killer. Moustafa must return to his roots to clear his cousin’s name and reunite with the family he left behind.
But can Moustafa really go home again after having changed so much, and does that home even want him?

 

You can get it here. Kindle Unlimited members get to read it for free! 

My Latest Cairo Mystery Novel Now Available in Print!

 

 

My latest book, The Case of the Dastardly Djinn, prequel to the Masked Man of Cairo historical mystery series, is now available in print. While the bulk of my sales are in ebooks, some readers do prefer print so I try to serve these readers as well. You can get in on Amazon US, Amazon UK, and all the other Amazons.

The first in my Weimar mystery series, A Winter Murder in Berlin, should be out soon. I'm just waiting for the cover artist. Later in the year I'll come out with book two in that series and another Cairo novel. Stay tuned!

My Travel Year: A Look Back and a Look Forward

Cat and cat, Cairo

 

This past year wasn't the best for travel, as you all know. Despite all the restrictions, I did manage to make it to Egypt twice. I have a private flat where I can safely stay in the center of Cairo, and the travel restrictions are light to get into the country. You just need to show a negative PCR test and proof of vaccination.

The main destinations for these trips have been the northern parts of the country, taking in the early medieval monasteries at Wadi Natrun, the famous port of Alexandria, and the battlefield at El Alamein. I also briefly went south to Asyut to arrange a donation for someone to the Lilian Trasher orphanage, which briefly appeared in The Case of the Karnak Killer.

I also went to Oxford for my usual summer working vacation. English beer, country walks, and work in a medieval library. Not a bad life!

The South African variant put the spanner in the works of a couple of planned trips. I wanted to go to Berlin to research my Weimar mystery series, but they were going into partial shutdown so I cancelled those plans. I also had to cancel a trip to Essaouira in Morocco. The country decided to close its borders again to avoid the latest wave. I haven't been back to Morocco since this whole thing began and I'm missing it!

Tomb of a Mamluk ruler, Cairo

 

As I write this I'm recovering from a mild case of covid. Did I get it on one of my trips? Nope, I got it while supposedly staying safe at home in Madrid. Oh well!

Here's hoping 2022 will be better than 2021. If the latest variant subsides, and isn't replaced with another one, then I will go to Berlin and Essaouira this year. I also will be returning to Egypt sometime in the first half of the year. No set plans yet. I'm adopting a wait and see attitude.

If you want to hear more about my travels, you might enjoy my newsletter.

Commonwealth cemetery, El Alamein

Fancy turn-of-the-century buildings like this are a common sight in Alexandria

Now Available: The Case of the Asphyxiated Alexandrian!

 

Book Five of my Masked Man of Cairo historical mystery series is now available. The Case of the Asphyxiated Alexandrian takes our heroes to Egypt's fabled port.

So what's Book Six going to be? We'll see. I'm thinking of heading either to the isolated Coptic monasteries of Wadi Natrun or heading south all the way to the Sudan. I'll keep you posted.

A mysterious murder. A lost pharaoh.
Sir Augustus Wall came to Egypt to escape his old life, but when a comrade from the trenches is found murdered in a Cairo hotel, Augustus realizes his past has finally caught up.
Now he must discover the reason for the baffling murder, leading him and his friends Moustafa and Faisal on a dangerous hunt for the most sought-after treasure in Egypt.
The long-awaited fifth book in the Masked Man of Cairo series sees the trio on their greatest adventure yet!

My Latest Historical Mystery Novel is out Now!

The fourth in my Masked Man of Cairo series, The Case of the Karnak Killer, is out now as an ebook. The print edition is coming in July. A blurb is belo.

A scandal in America. A murder in Cairo.
Sir Augustus Wall, antiquities dealer and amateur sleuth, is hired to track down a blackmailer who threatens the reputation of an American millionaire. When blackmail turns to murder, he must travel up the Nile by steamboat to find the killer.
Joining him are Faisal, a street urchin who makes himself equally useful and troublesome; Heinrich Schäfer, a leading Egyptologist; and Jocelyn Montjoy, an adventurous woman who has captured his heart.
But complications set in before the hunt even begins. Unwelcome fellow passengers threaten to derail the investigation, and Augustus has fallen out with his right-hand man, Moustafa Ghani. Can a new team of investigators help him solve his most challenging case yet?

You can get the book here.

Writing During Lockdown

Hello from lockdown!

No, I'm not locked down in the hypostele hallway of Karnak temple like the photo suggests, I'm locked down in my apartment in Madrid, the hardest-hit city of one of the hardest-hit countries in the world. I'm only going out for essential shopping trips these days. My Easter trip to England has been canceled, as has a planned spring trip to Tunisia.

At least that gives me plenty of time to write. In addition to work for my usual clients, I'm hard at work on the fourth book of my Masked Man of Cairo series, The Case of the Karnak Killer. I should be done with it in a couple of weeks and then it will go into edits. After that I'll finish up the third in the Interzone Mystery series, Flight to Fez. After that I'll be working on a couple of new projects that I'll announce later in April.

My word count has definitely gone up in the last two weeks of total lockdown. Writing is keeping me sane, so I'll just keep doing more and more of it. What are you doing to keep sane?

Stay safe!

My Adventure Travel Year: A Look Back And A Look Forward

The Red Pyramid of Dashur.

Is it too late to write a retrospective on on 2019? Yeah, probably, but I've been busy.

It was a pretty solid year for me travel-wise, starting and ending with trips to Egypt to write my Masked Man of Cairo mystery series. I explored the old medieval district of Cairo, hung out with Egyptian and Sudanese friends, and headed to Bahariya Oasis deep in the Western Desert. The second trip, from which I recently returned, took me up the Nile to Luxor, somewhere I hadn't been since 1991. The modern city had grown and so have the ruins! No, there aren't suddenly more ancient temples, but more had been excavated and restored. Funny how even an archaeological site with change with time.

Bas-relief in tomb Luxor

Sandwiched between those two trips was a trip to Fez in Morocco. Readers of this blog will know that I regularly go to Morocco and have a few books set there, but oddly enough until this past year I hadn't been to one of its most famous cities. I stayed in the old medina and spent my days wandering around the labyrinthe of alleys.

Of course I also had my usual stays in Oxford and London for research and catching up with old friends.

The tannery in Fez ha been operating (and stinking) for centuries

So what's on the agenda for 2020? At least one trip to Egypt, perhaps with the goal of seeing the Faiyum region, which I've never visited. I also want to get some new countries under my belt. I've been to 35 countries but not a new one for several years. I'm fixing that by giving a talk at the International Dublin Writers' Festival in June. That's right, a guy named Sean McLachlan has never been to Ireland! Shameful. I'm also considering a trip to Tunisia and maybe even the Sudan. More details when I get them!

Holy man's tomb, Fez

Nobelman's tomb, Luxor

The hypostele hall in Karnak.

Travel Tuesday: Treasures of the Egyptian Museum

Shabtis were put in tombs to act as servants in the afterlife.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I got back from Egypt last week, which means I have plenty of pictures for Travel Tuesday posts!

When I'm in Cairo I always reserve a couple of afternoons to wander around the National Museum. It's absolutely huge and no matter how many times I go there, I always see something new. A new National Museum is being constructed on the Giza Plateau near the pyramids. I passed the building the last time I went up there. It's a sleek, modern building that's even bigger than the existing museum. As with many government projects, it's behind schedule, but when it finally opens it promises to be stunning. In the meantime, we have the old museum to enjoy.

Stela of the Buchis Bull, showing one of the Ptolemaic pharaohs giving offerings to the sacred bull in their burial place in Armant. The Buchis bulls were manifestations of the god Ptah.

Two male figurines made of gold during the Late Predynastic period. Yep, these two guys are older than the oldest pharaoh!

Column of painted limestone carved to look like a lotus flower.

Back from Egypt

Medieval mosque in Old Cairo

I just got back to Madrid after nearly a month in Egypt. I was there working on the third of my Masked Man of Cairo neo-pulp mystery series, The Case of the Golden Greeks. It's about halfway done.

Egypt was as wonderful as usual. I spent a lot of my time in Cairo hanging out with Egyptian friends and exploring the old medieval neighborhood where Sir Augustus Wall has his antiquities shop and gets into many of his adventures. Then I went to the Western Desert for a week, ending up in Bahariya Oasis, the site of much of the plot for Book 3. A long drive from Cairo (or ten days by camel), Bahariya Oasis has become famous for the discovery of the Golden Mummies, a collection of beautifully preserved gilded mummies from the Greco-Roman period.

One of the Golden Mummies of Bahariya Oasis, courtesy Wikimedia Commons because I wasn't allowed to take photos. One wonders who they got a shot.

I'll be working on the novel for the next couple of months, and getting into some ghostwriting projects as well. Enjoy these pictures from my trip, and check out my Facebook and Instagram pages for more. More posts about Egypt coming soon!

Rear and side wall of the tomb Nr. 54, Valley of the Golden Mummies, el-Bahriya, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Bahariya Oasis.

Late Period tomb in Bahariya Oasis

Roman fort on the old caravan route to Bahariya Oasis.

Back to civilization! A pleasure boat on the Nile.

All photos copyright Sean McLachlan unless otherwise noted.

Military History Photo Friday: The Pharaoh Ramesses II Smiting the Enemies of Egypt

This carving is from the National Museum in Cairo and shows Pharaoh Ramesses II (1279-1212 BC) smiting the traditional enemies of Egypt. Shown from left to right are a Nubian, a Libyan, and an Asiatic (perhaps a Hittite). The "smiting pose" was a popular one for pharaonic imagery. Ramesses has an axe in his hand.

Ramesses II campaigned against all three of these peoples, but is most famous for his long war with the Hittites, an empire based in what is now Turkey that had spread into the Levant and threatened Egypt. His victory at the Battle of Kadesh was recorded in a long and bombastic text that was copied onto many later buildings.

Sorry for the grubby picture and the light reflection. The National Museum needs to clean its display cases!

My next newsletter coming out this week, sign up for a free ebook!

The third issue of my newsletter, Sean's Travels and Tales, will come out later this week. This issue includes an article on an odd artifact I spotted in the National Museum in Cairo, a short story from my Toxic World series, and a coupon for a free ebook.

So click on this link to sign up to my newsletter. I promise not to share your email with anyone, because that's a sure way to tank my career!

Travel Tuesday: Ancient Egyptian Shabtis

A variety of shabtis from the 19th and 20th dynasties (1292-1075 BC)

If you've spent much time in the Egyptology section of any good museum, you've probably seen a collection of little figurines that look like miniature mummies. These are called "shabtis", meaning "answerer". They were put in tombs in order to answer the call to work in the afterlife so that the deceased could relax. They'd come to life and do whatever labor the gods called on them to do.

Some shabtis got their own coffin and larger collections were put in decorated boxes like the one on the left.

Shabtis come in a variety of styles and quality and are made of wood, faience, wax, terracotta, or stone. Some tombs had hundreds of them, and they are one of the most common artifacts to find in museums. These are from the archaeological museum in Bologna, Italy.

I recently did a blog post over on Black Gate about shabtis in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo that goes into more detail about these remarkable artifacts. I've also done a post right here on a rare double shabti.

Military History Photo Friday: Roman Crocodile Armor

Yes, it's been almost a month since I posted. Sorry about that! I was on a research trip to Oxford and London, plus I was slammed with a ghostwriting deadline. Hopefully I'm now back on track for more regular blog posts.

I spotted this lovely suit of armor in the British Museum. It's from Manfalout, Egypt, from the 3rd or 4th century AD. This town is in Middle Egypt where there were many sacred grottoes to the crocodile-headed god Sobek, god of the Nile. These grottoes had sacred crocodiles that were often mummified after death. Roman soldiers often took on local religions and the troops in Manfalout were no exception. They would hold religious processions in honor of Sobek while wearing crocodile armor.

Photo copyright Sean McLachlan. Sorry for the reflection in the middle of the shot. I twisted and turned every which way and this was the best I could get. They really needed to invent artifact cases that don't reflect at all!

Travel Tuesday: Old Kingdom Death Mask from the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo

My recent trip to Egypt was actually the second time I visited that fascinating country. The first was way back in 1991. As I wandered around the sights, I was occasionally hit by deja vu. Other sights I remember clearly from my first visit. One of the latter is this arresting Old Kingdom death mask in the national museum in Cairo.

It stuck in my mind from my first visit because the face looks just like people you see in Egypt today. Indeed, despite Egypt being popularly perceived (and officially titled) an Arab nation, only 17% of the genetic makeup of the modern population is Arabic. A recent study by National Geographic found that the Egyptian population is genetically 68% North African, 17% Arab, 4% Jewish Diaspora, 3% East African, 3% from Asia Minor, and 3% southern European. Thus the modern Egyptian population is much the same as the ancient Egyptian population, and this 4,000 year old mask shows a face that can still be seen on the streets of Cairo today.

Back From A Writing Retreat In Egypt

I'm back from Cairo! Actually I've been back for a few days but returned to a heap of ghostwriting I needed to get done. I'm just now coming up for air.

This is my new writing buddy, the priest Padiamenopet, shown here posing as a scribe. He worked at the vast temple of Ra at Karnak in the 25th dynasty (760-656 BC). His right hand would have held a reed pen, which is now missing. You can see the scroll he's working on. I wonder what his daily word count was? Now he lives in the Egyptian Museum, which was just five minute's walk from my hotel. I ended up going there a lot! I also, of course, visited Giza, Saqqara, and Dashur. The last is the home to the famous Bent Pyramid, seen below. The last time I was in Egypt, way back in 1991, it stood inside a military base and was closed to visitors, so it was nice to finally get there.

I was very fortunate to attend the Cairo Video Festival, an experimental film festival, early in my stay. Because of this I met an interesting circle of Egyptian and Sudanese filmmakers, artists, historians, and writers who kept me busy for the rest of my trip.

Of course I was there for writing, and I got 35,000 words into a novel set in Cairo during the 1919 Revolution, an early major push for independence. Called The Masked Man of Cairo, it's a neo-pulp adventure story of a disfigured WWI veteran who, disgusted with Europe, moves to Egypt and starts a business selling antiquities. Soon he finds just as much trouble as he had during the war! More on that novel as it progresses. Our hero (more like antihero) lives in Old Cairo, a labyrinth of medieval streets and centuries-old buildings. I spent much of my time wandering this wonderful part of the city catching inspiration.

I'll be posting lots of Egyptian photos here and over on Black Gate, where I blog on Wednesdays. You can also see more pictures on my Instagram account. Stay tuned!

Off to Egypt to write my next book

I'm off to Cairo tomorrow for a couple of weeks to work on my next novel, a neo-pulp adventure story set in Cairo in 1919. I write about it and the setting at length in this Black Gate post. While I won't be on much social media, I will be updating my Instagram account daily, so you can follow along with my exploration of Cairo and the surrounding area. You don't have to have an Instagram account of your own to see the pictures.

Special thanks to blogger buddy Lexa Cain for lots of tips on Egypt. Check out here blog for some interesting insights into the country.

Photo of the pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara from Wikimedia Commons. Everyone always shows Giza but this was the first pyramid, c. 2648 BC!

Happy Valentine's Day from Ancient Egypt!

This happy couple is a rare example of a double shabti. A shabti was a figurine placed in an ancient Egyptian tomb that would act as a servant in the afterlife. They come in a remarkable number and variety, but seeing double ones like this are rare. In fact I don't think I've seen one before. This example dates from the 19th or 20th dynasties (1295-1069 BC) and is made of faience. I spotted it in the archaeological museum of Bologna, which also has an incredible Etruscan collection that I've written about over on Black Gate. You can see some more examples of shabtis in a post I did about London's Petrie Museum on the same blog.

It kind of sucks that this happy couple has to labor ceaselessly for all eternity for some dead Egyptian noble but hey, at least they have each other!

Book Review: A History of Ancient Egypt by Nicolas Grimal

A History of Ancient Egypt by Nicolas Grimal
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

You know those books that you find kind of dull but you can't put down because they're teaching you so much you want to learn? This was one of those books for me. This is a detailed history of Ancient Egypt from the Predynastic Period until the end of the Late Period. Emphasis is on royalty and their great works of architecture. While this is all fascinating, I could have used more information about regular people, the economy, technology, and all the other aspects of this complex civilization.
I could have also used prose that was less dry, maps that were more complete, and more explanation of terms to lessen confusion.
That said, I couldn't put this book down. There was so much information packed in its dense type that I was learning several things I didn't know on every page, and I have a Masters in archaeology. Granted, my focus was early medieval Europe, but I've still read a lot of Egyptology. This is not a book for the lay reader, but rather someone who has done a fair amount of reading.
If you're looking for a good intro to Ancient Egypt, this is not it. If you have some knowledge and want to learn more, try this out.

View all my reviews

Travel Tuesday: Protodynastic Egyptian Bracelet in the Petrie Museum

Can you tell I like the Petrie Museum? I blogged about this place for earlier posts on Midlist Writer about slings and other ancient Egyptian artifacts. I also did a post with lots of photos for Black Gate.

This is a bracelet from the Protodynatic Period, also called Naqada III, a time from c. 3200-3000 BC when states were beginning to form but the country had not yet been unified. The first hieroglyphs also date from this time, as do some rich cemeteries.

Someone should start making replicas of this bracelet, because my wife would love one. I think the original is out of my price range!