A review by berenikeasteria
Year of the Hyenas: A Novel of Murder in Ancient Egypt by Brad Geagley

3.0

I’m not quite sure what to make of this book. In parts it reads like a standard historical mystery novel, with all the enjoyment I’ve come to associate with that; the investigator gradually unravelling the clues, the resolution teased for the reader to try and figure it out for themselves, the process of working out the motivations of the suspects in the face of their hostility. A good long section of the book is grounded in this, in Semerket’s lengthy stay with the villagers.

But alongside that, the book is peppered with some really off-the-wall stuff. These range from characters with modern names that clearly do not belong in ancient Egypt, to plot twists that you’d sooner expect to see in a fantasy novel; a King of Beggars with a supervillain Cripple Maker physician and who expects the actual pharaoh to treat him as an equal. Um, okay. The author combines the thefts of Deir el-Medina with the Harem Plot to murder Ramesses III, and I didn’t mind that, as it genuinely makes for a tenser and more exciting story. But the author also takes some of the most lurid and nonsense fairytales about Queen Tausret (she did not murder her husband, and her father was not the usurper Amenmesse but most likely Merenptah, pharaoh and son of Ramesses II the Great). I just felt real dismay at that. It doesn’t seem respectful or right to take the worst slanderous gossip about historic people – real people, let me remind you, who once lived – and repeat it when there’s no actual solid evidence for it whatsoever, just to make your tale juicier and more salacious. In this case it didn’t even have a purpose in the plot – other than, I would guess, to make Queen Tiya seem more evil because she’s descended from someone who we’re told is evil… but that just comes off as terribly cliché. The grasping witch descended from a line of evil women – it’s tired, it’s overdone, it’s over the top. The writing was best described as passable. There were moments when it veered into far too modern and pedestrian, but mostly it manages to stop short of that.

5 out of 10