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The latest Amelia Peabody mystery/adventure is a chronicle of one of the ""missing years"" -- 1907-1908 -- shedding new light on an already exceptional career, a remarkable family . . . and an unexpected terror. Ousted from their most recent archaeological dig and banned forever from the Valley of the Kings, the Emersons are spending a quiet summer at home in Kent, England, when a mysterious messenger arrives. Claiming to be the teenage brother of their dear friend Tarek, prince of the mysterious Lost Oasis, the charismatic herald brings troubling news of a strange malady that has struck down Tarek's heir and conveys his brother's urgent need for help only the Emersons can provide. Driven by loyalty, the family sets off in secret for the land time forgot -- a mountain fortress from which they narrowly escaped ten years before -- unaware that deception is leading them onward into a nest of vipers where a dreadful fate may await. The remarkable Elizabeth Peters proves once again that she is truly without peer.

A hitherto lost journal of the indomitable Amelia Peabody has been miraculously recovered: a chronicle from one of the ""missing years"" -- 1907-1908 -- shedding new light on an already exceptional career, a remarkable family . . . and an unexpected terror. "