City of the Dead: My Review

City of the Dead is one of a series of books by T.L. Higley that tell a story related to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. I already reviewed another of these books, In the Shadow of Colossus. City of the Dead is set in ancient Egypt and the main character is Hemiunu, the Grand Vizier and architect of the Great Pyramid. It combines a murder mystery, romance, history and religion. In a nutshell, some people who are close to Hemiuno start turning up dead, and covered with beautiful death masks. Hemiuno starts to investigate and at first believes their deaths have something to do with a strange religion they practice. Instead of worshipping Egypt's traditional gods, they are the People of the One, and they look forward to a savior.

The book contains a lot of historical detail about the clothing the people wore, the life of those building the pyramid, and the religion the Egyptians practiced. If I remember my history correctly, at least one pharaoh was monotheistic, but I don't remember if I ever knew much about his version of monotheism. I guess what I'm saying is I don't know whether The People of the One are a figment of Higley's imagination or a historical reality, but I suppose that they are why this book is classified as Christian fiction. The descriptions given of them and their hidden worship reminded me of the Christians in the catacombs.

I enjoyed the book and recommend it.

First Wildcard will tour this book next week; check back then to read the first chapter.