Nefertiti: The Book of the Dead by Nick Drake

This is another one of those secondhand bookshop finds. I'm always curious to see how ancient Egypt is portrayed in fiction and take great delight in deciding for myself whether the author has nailed the setting ... or not. Nefertiti: The Book of the Dead by Nick Drake takes us to ancient Egypt during the reign of the heretic pharaoh, Akhenaten, and offers us a spot of a murder mystery untangled by one Rahotep, a chief detective among the Medjay. He is called to Akhetaten, Akhenaten's new city, to discover why Queen Nefertiti has vanished. Of course, it's all very hush-hush. No one can know that the beautiful, enigmatic queen has disappeared. Especially not days before a massive festival. The pharaoh cannot be seen to lose face among his people nor the foreign emissaries who have descended upon the city for the celebration.

And, although the city is fair of face, Rahotep soon realises that behind the pretty façade lurks an uglier, darker shadow that will threaten to overwhelm him. As a stranger in this society, he must race against the clock or stand to lose everything that he holds dear. When in service to the ruler, failure is not an option, even when there are forces putting obstacles in Rahotep's way at every turn.

It's not often that I read crime/mystery novels, and will admit freely that the primary reason I picked this up was because of the setting. And, while I feel Drake does a credible job with the setting, there were often moments where I feel he doesn't quite hit the mark with the tone or mood of the culture. Granted, not that I'd know exactly how ancient Egyptians would have thought and behaved but there were moments where things felt a trifle too ... contemporary. For instance, a function where servants were moving between guests with what amounted to trays of canapés. Also, the police work felt more like something modern, straight out of a contemporary setting. Not that the idea of an ancient detective who's struck upon 'modern' methods doesn't have appeal. It's just that here it didn't quite gel.

The novel itself chugs along merrily, but then about halfway through it shifts, and I'm not quite sure what the plan was. The writing is certainly poetic and lyrical, but then the payoff with a tension-filled mystery/thriller plot just falls flat, almost as if Drake couldn't quite figure out where he wanted to take the story past what proved to be a promising start. Characterisation felt a bit flat, even if the setting was well considered, and there were moments when young Rahotep has some enjoyable introspection. Don't get me wrong, this is a well-written novel – it's just that the story seems to suffer a bit of a polarisation at its midpoint, and the tension that should have been there just fizzles out. Nice concept, not so much on the execution.