Trouble is brewing in Egypt at the close of 1914 and no one will escape the coming tempest. With the world at war, Amelia Peabody and her husband Radcliffe Emerson have returned to Cairo for another season of archaeological excavation—despite the increasing danger of an attack on the Suez Canal and on Egypt itself. A terrible conflict looms. A long-simmering love affair is resolved. A dastardly plot unfolds. There is no escaping the furious storm that now threatens the Emersons and their world—so Amelia plunges right into it.