In 523 BC, the Persian pharaoh Cambyses dispatched an army across Egypt's western desert to destroy the oracle at Siwa. Legend has it that somewhere in middle of the Great Dune Sea his army was overwhelmed by a sandstorm and lost for ever.

Two and a half millennia later a mutilated corpse is washed up on the banks of the Nile at Luxor, an antiques dealer is savagely murdered in Cairo, and a British archaeologist is found dead at the ancient necropolis of Saqqara.

The incidents appear unconnected, but Inspector Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor police is suspicious, as is the archaeologist's daughter, Tara Mullray. Lured into a labyrinth of intrigue, violence and betrayal by a mysterious hieroglyphic fragment and rumours of a fabulous lost tomb, what began as a search for the truth becomes a race for survival. Confronted both by present day adversaries and ghosts from their pasts, Khalifa and Mullray find themselves on a trail that leads into the desert's unforgiving, burning heart, and the answer to one of the greatest mysteries of the ancient world.

A thrilling, adrenalin-packed archaeological adventure, The Lost Army of Cambyses marks the d'but of an outstanding new storyteller.