England, 1892, and Victoria, Queen and Empress, is in the 54th year of her reign. The reign of Lily Langtry as mistress to the dissolute Prince of Wales is over, while that of Mrs Keppel is shortly to begin. The prince's unfortunate wife, the long-suffering Alexandra, is the most popular woman in Britain, feted and adored, yet sadly her son, Albert VictorEddy to his family and second in line to the throne - has taken after his father and is also renowned for his scandalous lifestyle.
Then Prince Eddy is found slaughtered in his bed. Terrified of this new scandal, the Prince of Wales and his spindoctors decide on a cover-up. The murder is disguised as death by influenza. Lord Francis Powerscourt, an Irish investigator, is asked to find the killer.
The Royal Family and even the Government are not above suspicion for Eddy would have been a singularly unsuitable monarch. Powerscourt's quest takes him through the Prince's unsavoury past, on a journey of discovery through the crumbling palazzos and misty waterways of Venice. And it takes him on a love affair that starts in front of Turner's Fighting Temeraire in London's National Gallery. Through a web of scandal and suicide, vice and revenge Powerscourt unravels the mystery of the prince's last goodnight.

In Amelia's seventh adventure, she and Emerson take passage on a boat travelling up the Nile, enjoying a second honeymoon while they search for Nefertiti's tomb. On the other hand, they might be heading towards murder. An exotic slave woman, a Siamese cat and a den of conspirators unite to snatch away Amelia's happiness unless she reveals a certain secret...and at the remote dig in Amarna what she uncovers is a shocking present-day peril: the loss of treasures far more precious than any antiquity - her husband's love or both their lives! .

A masked stranger offers to reveal an Egyptian queens' lost tomb - and Amelia Peabody and her irascible archaeologist husband Emerson are intrigued, to say the least. When the guide mysteriously disappears before he can tell them his secret, the Peabody-Emersons sail to Thebes to follow his trail, helped - and hampered - by their teenage son Rameses, and beautiful ward Nefret. Before the sands of time shift very far, all of them will be risking their lives foiling murderers, kidnappers, grave robbers, and ancient curses. Off once again on a rollicking adventure involving archaeology, murderers, kidnappers, grave robbers and ancient curses. And the hippopotamus Pool? It's a legend of war and wits that Amelia is translating, one that alerts her to a hippo of a different type - a nefarious, overweight art dealer who is on course to become her new arch-enemy!