I came across this book trailer as I was searching for something else at Youtube. Although I haven't read the book (yet), it intrigues me very much. At this time of year when we look forward to Resurrection Day, many of us are focused on the cross more than we might usually be.
In The Mystery of the Cross, Judith Couchman offers forty images of the cross for spiritual reflection. These artful readings will enrich your understanding of Christian tradition, draw you closer to Christ, and deepen your appreciation for the mystery of the cross. Available where books are sold.
The illustrations in the book trailer appear in the book.
Learn more about Judith Couchman's works at www.judithcouchman.com and www.judithcouchman.blogspot.com.
Showing posts with label murder mystery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label murder mystery. Show all posts
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
ANGEL OF WRATH Rates High on the Creepy Scale
CFRB is touring Bill Myers' latest novel, Angel of Wrath, in June. Let me say right off the bat that this one is high on the creepy scale, so for all of you who like spiritual thrillers, you will probably like this book.
The adventure involves three characters who had appeared earlier in the novel The Voice, but that doesn't mean you can't follow this story if you haven't read The Voice. Bill Myers drops in pieces from that story to let us understand more about the three main characters. His writing skills are such that this doesn't end up as an information dump, but scattered nicely throughout the tale. These three are very imperfect (read normal) people with emotional scars that color their perception of the world, yet three who God cares about and who are in the process of healing even as their story unwinds. Charlie Madison is a former Special Ops guy haunted by some of his past, wanting to serve the Lord now in all he does. Charlie is partnered with Lisa Harmon, a former FBI agent who apparently bent a few too many rules when she was in the agency. Charlie asks Lisa to marry him at the beginning of the book, but Lisa isn't ready for that right now. This daughter of a preacher suffered some abuse as a child that has kept her enchained in many ways, unable to deal with men or God very well. Finally, there's Jazmin, or Jaz, Charlie's teenage niece who became his charge when her parents were killed by terrorists. Not only was she orphaned in a rough way, she's deaf! Jaz has the unfortunate attitudes of many teenagers, which include a good bit of rebelliousness and rash actions. Yet she has a gift of "hearing" that doesn't involve her ears: she gets sensations of warmth, evil, coldness, and God, especially in music. So even though she can't hear the music in a physical sense, there is a supernatural sense that ends up being very important to the story.
It seems that Lisa's brother Thomas is the pastor of a thriving megachurch, and his members are being murdered in really freaky ways. The book opens with a doctor putting his daughter to bed. This doctor performs abortions, and earlier in the day he had received a cryptic note on a church bulletin: THOU SHALT NOT KILL. He apparently dies from a heart attack brought on by fright, but the words THOU SHALT NOT KILL also appear on the daughter's wall. The next victim is a businessman whose car stereo suddenly plays the song "Money" on every station, and whose car stalls out on the railroad tracks. The doors lock and he can't get out. When the train comes rolling towards him, he can not escape. On the seat beside him is a note on church stationary: THOU SHALT NOT STEAL.
So Rev. Thomas Harmon calls on his sister and Charlie to help find whoever is killing his church members. Meanwhile, there is also a cult going on in the woods: teenagers in the town are gathering, sacrificing cats, and calling on some forces that they don't understand. The guy who is behind the cult teaches that Jesus and Satan are acting together to bring revenge. These rituals in the woods call up something no one expected.
The book is teaming with supernatural occurrences, and the hair on the back of my neck bristled more than once. It definitely held my interest all the way through. There are so many stories going on at the same time and lots of baggage that needs to be unloaded, lots of problems that only God can handle. I can't say I am in complete agreement with some of the theology, but it gives a reader plenty to think about. Hopefully it will not only entertain the readers, but bring them closer to God in the process. It certainly made me think a bit more about certain areas I need to pray about more. It also should make us think about the power of worship and praise, and the need to really mean it when we sing those powerful songs to the Lord. I feel like the power of prayer is downplayed a bit too much in order to emphasize what true praise and worship are, but , nevertheless, some good points are made.
With an emphasis on teenagers, this book certainly qualifies as Young Adult, but it is most assuredly a good one for adults, too.
Bill Myers is a prolific writer with many books for adults, teens, and even kids. You can find out more about him and his work at his cool website here.
You can buy Angel of Wrath at many Christian and regular bookstores, or online at Christianbook.com , Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and Booksamillion.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
City of Dead:a Lively Whodunit
Well, City of the Dead has more depth to it than I expected. I realized that a book about the Great Pyramid, in a series called The Seven Wonders, would be a historic novel. The title made sense, too, considering that it was dealing with the tomb of the Pharaoh. I even suspected there would be some romance involved. However, it was surprising to me to find myself reading an ancient murder mystery. Yes, a historical murder mystery with romance. Quite a combination, and one that T. L. Higley pulls off quite well.
The narrator is Hemiunu, Grand Vizier under the Pharaoh Khufu, who begins this tale at a time when the pyramid for Khufu is about half-finished and all kinds of problems plague the work as well as Hemi's personal life. The prologue gives a glimpse into a deep secret that Hemi, his brother Ahmose, Khufu, and three others have buried in their hearts since they were all very young. One of their close friends, Amunet, died when they were all out together. The Pharaoh of the time, Khufu's father, commanded them to all keep this a total secret, to never speak of it again, even though the truth behind her death was never investigated or discovered. Hemi never speaks of it, but it is far from buried from his conscience. And so he has nightmares that replay the scenes over and over.
Suddenly, more of that circle of childhood friends are killed. The first is Mentu, Hemi's best friend. He is found in the animal pens cut with a butchering knife and his face covered with an intricately designed gold mask. The gold masks become the murderer's signature. But who is it? And why? Hemi needs to go on about his responsibilities, overseeing the work on the pyramid, yet his heart and mind won't let him rest until he does all possible to find the killer and bring him to justice. In his search, he seems to make more trouble for himself, but the search also leads him to find a remarkable group of people known as the People of the One; a secretive group themselves who believe in one God, not the many that Egyptians follow, a group who seem to have found peace and security that he does not know.
There are many elements of the story that I could write about, but I don't want to make this too long and boring. First of all, it is very obvious that Ms. Higley carried out extensive research. This story brought the period and the culture out of the dust and made it brilliantly alive for me. She successfully puts the reader smack dab in the middle of the building of the Great Pyramid, smoothly merging engineering stuff, social and religious culture, royal intrigue, and the passions of youth. Geographical details of the Nile (complete with hippos and alligators), the canals, Giza, and the desert make us feel like we are there. Then there is the great story, propelled by events in the present, interspersed with glimpses into the past--the day when the lives of six companions were forever bound together and changed. The way she doles out bits and pieces heightens interest. The characters are quite compelling as well, in particular Hemiunu. This young man is constantly striving to bring all things into order (ma'at) and a disdain for chaos. In other words, a neat freak, even compulsively so. He also yearns for the balance of justice and mercy, something he learns much more about once he meets the People of the One.
And I haven't even brought up the romance angle! Oh, this one gets so complicated! It's intrinsic to the whole story, though.
If you like murder mysteries, historical fiction, or romance, this book is one you will enjoy. Check out the previous blog for a book trailer, information about the author, and an excerpt of the prologue and first chapter.
For more information, visit the author's website at http://www.tlhigley.com.
You can buy City of the Dead at many bookstores as well as online at Christianbook.com, Amazon.com, and BarnesandNoble.com.
FIRST look: CITY OF THE DEAD by T. L. Higley
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Today's Wild Card author is:
and the book:
City of the Dead (Seven Wonders Series)
B&H Books (March 1, 2009)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
From her earliest childhood, there was nothing Tracy loved better than stepping into another world between the pages of a book. From dragons and knights, to the wonders of Narnia, that passion has never abated, and to Tracy, opening any novel is like stepping again through the wardrobe, into the thrilling unknown. With every book she writes, she wants to open a door like that, and invite readers to be transported with her into a place that captivates. She has traveled through Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Israel and Jordan to research her novels, and looks forward to more travel as the Seven Wonders series continues. It’s her hope that in escaping to the past with her, readers will feel they’ve walked through desert sands, explored ancient ruins, and met with the Redeeming God who is sovereign over the entire drama of human history.Visit the author's website.
Product Details:
List Price: $14.99
Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: B&H Books (March 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0805447318
ISBN-13: 978-0805447316
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Prologue
In my dreams, it is often I who kills Amunet. Other nights it is Khufu, in one of his mad rages. And at other times it is a great mystery, destined to remain unknown long after the ka of each of us has crossed to the west.
Tonight, as I lay abed, my dreams reveal all the truth that I know.
Merit is there, like a beautiful lotus flower among the papyrus reeds.
“Hemi,” she whispers, using the shortened form of my name in the familiar way I long for. “We should join the others.”
The tufts of reeds that spring from the marsh’s edge wave around us, higher than our heads, our private thicket.
“They are occupied with the hunt,” I say.
A cloud of birds rises from the marsh in that moment, squawking their protest at being disturbed. Merit turns her head to the noise and I study the line of her jaw, the long curls that wave across her ear. I pull her close, my arms around her waist.
Her body is stiff at first, then melts against mine.
“Hemi, you must let me go.”
Some nights in my dreams I am a better man.
“Merit.” I bury my face in her hair, breathe in the spicy scent of her. “I cannot.”
I pull her into my kiss.
She resists. She pushes me away and her eyes flash accusation, but something else as well. Sorrow. Longing.
I reach for her again, wrapping my fingers around her wrist. She twists away from my grasp. I do not know what I might have done, but there is fear in her eyes. By the gods, I wish I could forget that fear.
She runs. What else could she do?
She runs along the old river bed, not yet swollen with the year’s Inundation, stagnant and marshy. She disappears among the papyrus. The sky is low and gray, an evil portent.
My anger roots me to the ground for several moments, but then the potential danger propels me to follow.
“Merit,” I call. “Come back. I am sorry!”
I weave slowly among the reeds, searching for the white flash of her dress, the bronze of her skin.
“Merit, it is not safe!”
Anger dissolves into concern. I cannot find her.
In the way of dreams, my feet are unnaturally heavy, as though I fight through alluvial mud to reach her. The first weighted drops fall from an unearthly sky.
And then she is there, at the base of the reeds. White dress dirtied, head turned unnaturally. Face in the water. My heart clutches in my chest. I lurch forward. Drop to my knees in the marsh mud. Push away the reeds. Reach for her.
It is not Merit.
It is Amunet.
“Amunet!” I wipe the mud and water from her face and shake her. Her eyes are open yet unfocused.
I am less of a man because, in that moment, I feel relief.
Relief that it is not Merit.
But what has happened to Amunet? Khufu insisted that our royal hunting party split apart to raise the birds, but we all knew that he wanted to be with Amunet. Now she is alone, and she has crossed to the west.
As I hold her lifeless body in my arms, I feel the great weight of choice fall upon my shoulders. The rain pours through an evil gash in the clouds.
Khufu is my friend. He is my cousin. He will soon wear the Double Crown of the Two Lands of Upper and Lower Egypt. And when Khufu is Pharaoh, I will be his grand vizier.
But it would seem that I hold our future in my hands now, as surely as I hold this girl’s body.
I lower Amunet to the mud again and awake, panting and sweating, in my bed. I roll from the mat, scramble for a pot, and retch. It is not the first time.
The sunlight is already burning through the high window in my bedchamber.
The past is gone. There is only the future.
And I have a pyramid to build.
1
In the fifth year of Khufu, the Golden Horus, Great in Victories, Chosen of Ra, as the pyramid rose in the desert like a burning torch to the sun god himself, I realized my mistake and knew that I had brought disorder.
“Foolishness!” Khons slapped a stone-roughened hand on the papyri unrolled on the basalt-black slab before us, and turned his back on the well-ordered charts to study the workforce on the plateau.
I refused to follow his gaze. Behind me, I knew, eight thousand men toiled, dragging quarry stones up ramps that snaked around my half-finished pyramid, and levering them into beautiful precision. Below them, intersecting lines of men advanced with the rhythm of drumbeats. They worked quickly but never fast enough.
My voice took on a hard edge. “Perhaps, Khons, if you spent more time listening and less blustering—”
“You speak to me of time?” The Overseer of Quarries whirled to face me, and the muscles in his jaw twitched like a donkey’s flank when a fly irritates. “Do you have any idea what these changes mean?” He waved a hand over my plans. “You were a naked baboon at Neferma’at’s knee when he and I were building the pyramids at Saqqara!”
This insult was well-worn, and I was sick of it. I stepped up to him, close enough to map every vein in his forehead. The desert air between us stilled with the tension. “You forget yourself, Khons. I may not be your elder, but I am grand vizier.”
“My good men,” Ded’e interrupted, his voice dripping honey as he smoothed long fingers over the soft papyrus. “Let us not quarrel like harem women over a simple change of design.”
“Simple!” Khons snorted. “Perhaps for you. Your farmers and bakers care not where Pharaoh’s burial chamber is located. But I will need to rework all the numbers for the Giza quarry. The timeline for the Aswan granite will be in chaos.” Khons turned on me. “The plans for the queen’s pyramid are later than grain in a drought year. A project of this magnitude must run like marble over the rollers. A change like this—you’re hurling a chunk of limestone into the Nile, and there will be ripples. Other deadlines will be missed—”
I held up a hand and waited to respond. I preferred to handle Khons and his fits of metaphor by giving us both time to cool. The sun hammered down on upon the building site, and I looked away, past the sands of death, toward the life-giving harbor and the fertile plain beyond. This year’s Inundation had not yet crested, but already the Nile’s green waters had swelled to the border of last year’s floodplain. When the waters receded in three months, leaving behind their rich silt deposits, the land would be black and fertile and planting would commence.
“Three months,” I said. In three months, most of my workforce would return to their farms to plant and till, leaving my pyramid unfinished, dependent on me to make it whole.
Khons grunted. “Exactly. No time for changes.”
Ded’e scanned the plateau, his fingers skimming his forehead to block the glare, though he had applied a careful line of kohl beneath his eyes today. “Where is Mentu? Did you not send a message, Hemiunu?”
I looked toward the workmen’s village, too far to make out anyone approaching by the road. Mentu-hotep also served as one of my chief overseers. These three answered directly to me, and under them commanded fifty supervisors, who in turn organized the twelve-thousand-man force. Nothing of this scale had ever been undertaken in the history of the Two Lands. In the history of man. We were building the Great Pyramid, the Horizon of the Pharaoh Khufu. A thousand years, nay, ten thousand years from now, my pyramid would still stand. And though a tomb for Pharaoh, it would also bear my name. A legacy in stone.
“Perhaps he thinks he can do as he wishes,” Khons said.
I ignored his petty implication that I played favorites among my staff. “Perhaps he is slow in getting started today.” I jabbed a finger at the plans again. “Look, Khons, the burial chamber’s relocation will mean that the inner core will require less stone, not more. I’ve redesigned the plans to show the king’s chamber beginning on Course Fifty. Between the corbelled ascending corridor, the burial chamber, five courses high, and the five relieving chambers that will be necessary above it, we will save 8,242 blocks.”
“Exactly 8,242? Are you certain?” De’de snorted. “I think you must stay up all night solving equations, eh, Hemi?”
I inclined my head to the pyramid, now one-fourth its finished height. “Look at it, De’de. See the way the sides angle at a setback of exactly 11:14. Look at the platform, level to an error less than the span of your little finger.” I turned on him. “Do you think such beauty happens by chance? No, it requires constant attention from one who would rather lose sleep than see it falter.”
“It’s blasphemy.” Khons’s voice was low. It was unwise to speak thus of the Favored One.
I exhaled and we hung over the plans, heads together. Khons smelled of sweat and dust, and sand caked the outer rim of his ear.
“It is for the best, Khons. You will see.”
If blasphemy were involved it was my doing and not Khufu’s? I had engineered the raising of the burial chamber above ground and, along with it, Khufu’s role as the earthly incarnation of the god Ra. It was for the good of Egypt, and now it must be carried forward. Hesitation, indecision—these were for weak men.
“Let the priests argue about religious matters,” I said. “I am a builder.”
Ded’e laughed. “Yes, you are like the pyramid, Hemi. All sharp angles and unforgiving measurements.”
I blinked at the observation, then smiled as though it pleased me.
Khons opened his mouth, no doubt to argue, but a shout from the worksite stopped him. We three turned to the pyramid, and I ground my teeth to see the workgangs falter in their measured march up the ramps. Some disorder near the top drew the attention of all. I squinted against the bright blue sky but saw only the brown figures of the workforce covering the stone.
“Cursed Mentu. Where is he?” Khons asked the question this time.
As Overseer for Operations, Mentu took charge of problems on the line. In his absence, I now stalked toward the site.
The Green Sea Gang had halted on the east-face ramp, their draglines still braced over their bare shoulders. Even from thirty cubits below I could see the ropy muscles stand out on the backs of a hundred men as they strained to hold the thirty-thousand-deben-weight block attached to the line. Their white skirts of this morning had long since tanned with dust, and their skin shone with afternoon sweat.
“Sokkwi! Get your men moving forward!” I shouted to the Green Sea Gang supervisor who should have been at the top.
There was no reply, so I strode up the ramp myself, multiplying in my mind the minutes of delay by the stones not raised. The workday might need extending.
Halfway up the rubble ramp, a scream like that of an antelope skewered by a hunter’s arrow ripped the air. I paused only a moment, the men’s eyes on me, then took to the rope-lashed ladder that leaned against the pyramid’s side. I felt the acacia wood strain under the pounding of my feet, and slowed only enough for safety. The ladder stretched to the next circuit of the ramp, and I scrambled from it, chest heaving, and sprinted through the double-line of laborers that snaked around the final ramp. Here the pyramid came to its end. Still so much to build.
Sokkwi, the gang supervisor, had his back to me when I reached the top. Several others clustered around him, bent to something on the stone. Chisels and drills lay scattered about.
“What is it? What’s happened?” The dry heat had stolen my breath, and the words panted out.
They broke apart to reveal a laborer, no more than eighteen years, on the ground, one leg pinned by a block half set in place. The boy’s eyes locked onto mine, as if to beg for mercy. “Move the stone!” I shouted to Sokkwi.
He scratched his chin. “It’s no good. The stone’s been dropped. We have nothing to—”
I jumped into the space open for the next stone, gripped the rising joint of the block that pinned the boy and yelled to a worker, larger than most. “You there! Help me slide this stone!”
He bent to thrust a shoulder against the stone. We strained against it like locusts pushing against a mountain. Sokkwi laid a hand upon my shoulder.
I rested a moment, and he inclined his head to the boy’s leg. Flesh had been torn down to muscle and bone. I reached for something to steady myself, but there was nothing at this height. The sight of blood, a weakness I had known since my youth, threatened to overcome me. I felt a warmth in my face and neck. I breathed slowly through my nose. No good for the men to see you swoon.
I knelt and placed a hand on the boy’s head, then spoke to Sokkwi. “How did this happen?”
He shrugged. “First time on the line.” He worked at something in his teeth with his tongue. “Doesn’t know the angles, I suppose.” Another shrug.
“What was he doing at the top then?” I searched the work area and the ramp below me again for Mentu. Anger churned my stomach.
The supervisor sighed and picked at his teeth with a fingernail. “Don’t ask me. I make sure the blocks climb those ramps and settle into place. That is all I do.”
How had Mentu had allowed this disaster? Justice, truth, and divine order—the ma’at—made Egypt great and made a man great. I did not like to see ma’at disturbed.
On the ramp, a woman pushed past the workers, shoving them aside in her haste to reach the top. She gained the flat area where we stood and paused, her breath huffing out in dry gasps. In her hands she held two jars, brimming with enough barley beer to allow the boy to feel fierce anger rather than beg for his own death. The surgeon came behind, readying his saw. The boy had a chance at life if the leg ended in a stump. Allowed to fester, the injury would surely kill him.
I masked my faintness with my anger and spun away.
“Mentu!” My yell carried past the lines below me, down into the desert below, perhaps to the quarry beyond. He should never have allowed so inexperienced a boy to place stones. Where had he been this morning when the gangs formed teams?
The men nearby were silent, but the work down on the plateau continued, heedless of the boy’s pain. The rhythmic ring of chisel on quarry stone punctuated the collective grunts of the quarry men, their chorus drifting across the desert, but Mentu did not answer the call.
Was he still in his bed? Mentu and I had spent last evening pouring wine and reminiscing late into the night about the days of our youth. Some of them anyway. Always one story never retold.
Another scream behind me. That woman had best get to pouring the barley beer. I could do nothing more here. I moved through the line of men, noting their nods of approval for the effort I’d made on behalf of one of their own.
When I reached the base and turned back toward the flat-topped black basalt stone where I conferred with Khons and Ded’e, I saw that another had joined them. My brother.
I slowed my steps, to allow that part of my heart to harden like mudbricks in the sun, then pushed forward.
They laughed together as I approached, the easy laugh of men comfortable with one another. My older brother leaned against the stone, his arms crossed in front of him. He stood upright when he saw me.
“Ahmose,” I said with a slight nod. “What brings you to the site?”
His smile turned to a smirk. “Just wanted to see how the project proceeds.”
“Hmm.” I focused my attention once more on the plans. The wind grabbed at the edges of the papyrus, and I used a stone cubit rod, thicker than my thumb, to weight it. “The three of us must recalculate stone transfer rates—”
“Khons seems to believe your changes are going to sink the project,” Ahmose said. He smiled, his perfect teeth gleaming against his dark skin.
The gods had favored Ahmose with beauty, charm, and a pleasing manner that made him well loved among the court. But I had been blessed with a strong mind and a stronger will. And I was grand vizier.
I lifted my eyes once more to the pyramid rising in perfect symmetry against the blue sky, and the thousands of men at my command. “The Horizon of Khufu will look down upon your children’s grandchildren, Ahmose,” I said. I leaned over my charts and braced my fingertips on the stone. “When you have long since sailed to the west, still it will stand.”
He bent beside me, his breath in my ear. “You always did believe you could do anything. Get away with anything.”
The animosity in his voice stiffened my shoulders.
“Khons, Ded’e, if you will.” I gestured to the charts. Khons snorted and clomped to my side. And Ded’e draped his forearms across the papyrus.
“It must be gratifying,” Ahmose whispered, “to command men so much more experienced than yourself.”
I turned on him, my smile tight. “And it must be disheartening to see your younger brother excel while you languish in a job bestowed only out of pity—”
A boy appeared, sparing me the indignity of exchanging blows with my brother. His sidelock identified him as a young prince, and I recognized him as the youngest of Henutsen, one of Khufu’s lesser wives.
“His Majesty Khufu, the king, Horus,” the boy said, “the strong bull, beloved by the goddess of truth—”
“Yes, yes. Life, Health, Strength!” I barked. “What does Khufu want?” I was in no mood for the string of titles.
The boy’s eyes widened and he dragged a foot through the sand. “My father commands the immediate presence of Grand Vizier Hemiunu before the throne.”
“Did he give a reason?”
The prince pulled on his lower lip. “He is very angry today.”
“Very well.” I waved him off and turned to Khons and Ded’e, rubbing the tension from my forehead. “We will continue later.”
The two overseers made their escape before Ahmose and I had a chance to go at it again. I flicked a glance in his direction, then rolled up my charts, keeping my breathing even.
Behind me Ahmose said, “Perhaps Khufu has finally seen his error in appointing you vizier.” Like a sharp poke in the kidneys when our mother wasn’t watching.
“Excuse me, Ahmose.” I pushed past him, my hands full of charts. “I have an important meeting.”
In my dreams, it is often I who kills Amunet. Other nights it is Khufu, in one of his mad rages. And at other times it is a great mystery, destined to remain unknown long after the ka of each of us has crossed to the west.
Tonight, as I lay abed, my dreams reveal all the truth that I know.
Merit is there, like a beautiful lotus flower among the papyrus reeds.
“Hemi,” she whispers, using the shortened form of my name in the familiar way I long for. “We should join the others.”
The tufts of reeds that spring from the marsh’s edge wave around us, higher than our heads, our private thicket.
“They are occupied with the hunt,” I say.
A cloud of birds rises from the marsh in that moment, squawking their protest at being disturbed. Merit turns her head to the noise and I study the line of her jaw, the long curls that wave across her ear. I pull her close, my arms around her waist.
Her body is stiff at first, then melts against mine.
“Hemi, you must let me go.”
Some nights in my dreams I am a better man.
“Merit.” I bury my face in her hair, breathe in the spicy scent of her. “I cannot.”
I pull her into my kiss.
She resists. She pushes me away and her eyes flash accusation, but something else as well. Sorrow. Longing.
I reach for her again, wrapping my fingers around her wrist. She twists away from my grasp. I do not know what I might have done, but there is fear in her eyes. By the gods, I wish I could forget that fear.
She runs. What else could she do?
She runs along the old river bed, not yet swollen with the year’s Inundation, stagnant and marshy. She disappears among the papyrus. The sky is low and gray, an evil portent.
My anger roots me to the ground for several moments, but then the potential danger propels me to follow.
“Merit,” I call. “Come back. I am sorry!”
I weave slowly among the reeds, searching for the white flash of her dress, the bronze of her skin.
“Merit, it is not safe!”
Anger dissolves into concern. I cannot find her.
In the way of dreams, my feet are unnaturally heavy, as though I fight through alluvial mud to reach her. The first weighted drops fall from an unearthly sky.
And then she is there, at the base of the reeds. White dress dirtied, head turned unnaturally. Face in the water. My heart clutches in my chest. I lurch forward. Drop to my knees in the marsh mud. Push away the reeds. Reach for her.
It is not Merit.
It is Amunet.
“Amunet!” I wipe the mud and water from her face and shake her. Her eyes are open yet unfocused.
I am less of a man because, in that moment, I feel relief.
Relief that it is not Merit.
But what has happened to Amunet? Khufu insisted that our royal hunting party split apart to raise the birds, but we all knew that he wanted to be with Amunet. Now she is alone, and she has crossed to the west.
As I hold her lifeless body in my arms, I feel the great weight of choice fall upon my shoulders. The rain pours through an evil gash in the clouds.
Khufu is my friend. He is my cousin. He will soon wear the Double Crown of the Two Lands of Upper and Lower Egypt. And when Khufu is Pharaoh, I will be his grand vizier.
But it would seem that I hold our future in my hands now, as surely as I hold this girl’s body.
I lower Amunet to the mud again and awake, panting and sweating, in my bed. I roll from the mat, scramble for a pot, and retch. It is not the first time.
The sunlight is already burning through the high window in my bedchamber.
The past is gone. There is only the future.
And I have a pyramid to build.
1
In the fifth year of Khufu, the Golden Horus, Great in Victories, Chosen of Ra, as the pyramid rose in the desert like a burning torch to the sun god himself, I realized my mistake and knew that I had brought disorder.
“Foolishness!” Khons slapped a stone-roughened hand on the papyri unrolled on the basalt-black slab before us, and turned his back on the well-ordered charts to study the workforce on the plateau.
I refused to follow his gaze. Behind me, I knew, eight thousand men toiled, dragging quarry stones up ramps that snaked around my half-finished pyramid, and levering them into beautiful precision. Below them, intersecting lines of men advanced with the rhythm of drumbeats. They worked quickly but never fast enough.
My voice took on a hard edge. “Perhaps, Khons, if you spent more time listening and less blustering—”
“You speak to me of time?” The Overseer of Quarries whirled to face me, and the muscles in his jaw twitched like a donkey’s flank when a fly irritates. “Do you have any idea what these changes mean?” He waved a hand over my plans. “You were a naked baboon at Neferma’at’s knee when he and I were building the pyramids at Saqqara!”
This insult was well-worn, and I was sick of it. I stepped up to him, close enough to map every vein in his forehead. The desert air between us stilled with the tension. “You forget yourself, Khons. I may not be your elder, but I am grand vizier.”
“My good men,” Ded’e interrupted, his voice dripping honey as he smoothed long fingers over the soft papyrus. “Let us not quarrel like harem women over a simple change of design.”
“Simple!” Khons snorted. “Perhaps for you. Your farmers and bakers care not where Pharaoh’s burial chamber is located. But I will need to rework all the numbers for the Giza quarry. The timeline for the Aswan granite will be in chaos.” Khons turned on me. “The plans for the queen’s pyramid are later than grain in a drought year. A project of this magnitude must run like marble over the rollers. A change like this—you’re hurling a chunk of limestone into the Nile, and there will be ripples. Other deadlines will be missed—”
I held up a hand and waited to respond. I preferred to handle Khons and his fits of metaphor by giving us both time to cool. The sun hammered down on upon the building site, and I looked away, past the sands of death, toward the life-giving harbor and the fertile plain beyond. This year’s Inundation had not yet crested, but already the Nile’s green waters had swelled to the border of last year’s floodplain. When the waters receded in three months, leaving behind their rich silt deposits, the land would be black and fertile and planting would commence.
“Three months,” I said. In three months, most of my workforce would return to their farms to plant and till, leaving my pyramid unfinished, dependent on me to make it whole.
Khons grunted. “Exactly. No time for changes.”
Ded’e scanned the plateau, his fingers skimming his forehead to block the glare, though he had applied a careful line of kohl beneath his eyes today. “Where is Mentu? Did you not send a message, Hemiunu?”
I looked toward the workmen’s village, too far to make out anyone approaching by the road. Mentu-hotep also served as one of my chief overseers. These three answered directly to me, and under them commanded fifty supervisors, who in turn organized the twelve-thousand-man force. Nothing of this scale had ever been undertaken in the history of the Two Lands. In the history of man. We were building the Great Pyramid, the Horizon of the Pharaoh Khufu. A thousand years, nay, ten thousand years from now, my pyramid would still stand. And though a tomb for Pharaoh, it would also bear my name. A legacy in stone.
“Perhaps he thinks he can do as he wishes,” Khons said.
I ignored his petty implication that I played favorites among my staff. “Perhaps he is slow in getting started today.” I jabbed a finger at the plans again. “Look, Khons, the burial chamber’s relocation will mean that the inner core will require less stone, not more. I’ve redesigned the plans to show the king’s chamber beginning on Course Fifty. Between the corbelled ascending corridor, the burial chamber, five courses high, and the five relieving chambers that will be necessary above it, we will save 8,242 blocks.”
“Exactly 8,242? Are you certain?” De’de snorted. “I think you must stay up all night solving equations, eh, Hemi?”
I inclined my head to the pyramid, now one-fourth its finished height. “Look at it, De’de. See the way the sides angle at a setback of exactly 11:14. Look at the platform, level to an error less than the span of your little finger.” I turned on him. “Do you think such beauty happens by chance? No, it requires constant attention from one who would rather lose sleep than see it falter.”
“It’s blasphemy.” Khons’s voice was low. It was unwise to speak thus of the Favored One.
I exhaled and we hung over the plans, heads together. Khons smelled of sweat and dust, and sand caked the outer rim of his ear.
“It is for the best, Khons. You will see.”
If blasphemy were involved it was my doing and not Khufu’s? I had engineered the raising of the burial chamber above ground and, along with it, Khufu’s role as the earthly incarnation of the god Ra. It was for the good of Egypt, and now it must be carried forward. Hesitation, indecision—these were for weak men.
“Let the priests argue about religious matters,” I said. “I am a builder.”
Ded’e laughed. “Yes, you are like the pyramid, Hemi. All sharp angles and unforgiving measurements.”
I blinked at the observation, then smiled as though it pleased me.
Khons opened his mouth, no doubt to argue, but a shout from the worksite stopped him. We three turned to the pyramid, and I ground my teeth to see the workgangs falter in their measured march up the ramps. Some disorder near the top drew the attention of all. I squinted against the bright blue sky but saw only the brown figures of the workforce covering the stone.
“Cursed Mentu. Where is he?” Khons asked the question this time.
As Overseer for Operations, Mentu took charge of problems on the line. In his absence, I now stalked toward the site.
The Green Sea Gang had halted on the east-face ramp, their draglines still braced over their bare shoulders. Even from thirty cubits below I could see the ropy muscles stand out on the backs of a hundred men as they strained to hold the thirty-thousand-deben-weight block attached to the line. Their white skirts of this morning had long since tanned with dust, and their skin shone with afternoon sweat.
“Sokkwi! Get your men moving forward!” I shouted to the Green Sea Gang supervisor who should have been at the top.
There was no reply, so I strode up the ramp myself, multiplying in my mind the minutes of delay by the stones not raised. The workday might need extending.
Halfway up the rubble ramp, a scream like that of an antelope skewered by a hunter’s arrow ripped the air. I paused only a moment, the men’s eyes on me, then took to the rope-lashed ladder that leaned against the pyramid’s side. I felt the acacia wood strain under the pounding of my feet, and slowed only enough for safety. The ladder stretched to the next circuit of the ramp, and I scrambled from it, chest heaving, and sprinted through the double-line of laborers that snaked around the final ramp. Here the pyramid came to its end. Still so much to build.
Sokkwi, the gang supervisor, had his back to me when I reached the top. Several others clustered around him, bent to something on the stone. Chisels and drills lay scattered about.
“What is it? What’s happened?” The dry heat had stolen my breath, and the words panted out.
They broke apart to reveal a laborer, no more than eighteen years, on the ground, one leg pinned by a block half set in place. The boy’s eyes locked onto mine, as if to beg for mercy. “Move the stone!” I shouted to Sokkwi.
He scratched his chin. “It’s no good. The stone’s been dropped. We have nothing to—”
I jumped into the space open for the next stone, gripped the rising joint of the block that pinned the boy and yelled to a worker, larger than most. “You there! Help me slide this stone!”
He bent to thrust a shoulder against the stone. We strained against it like locusts pushing against a mountain. Sokkwi laid a hand upon my shoulder.
I rested a moment, and he inclined his head to the boy’s leg. Flesh had been torn down to muscle and bone. I reached for something to steady myself, but there was nothing at this height. The sight of blood, a weakness I had known since my youth, threatened to overcome me. I felt a warmth in my face and neck. I breathed slowly through my nose. No good for the men to see you swoon.
I knelt and placed a hand on the boy’s head, then spoke to Sokkwi. “How did this happen?”
He shrugged. “First time on the line.” He worked at something in his teeth with his tongue. “Doesn’t know the angles, I suppose.” Another shrug.
“What was he doing at the top then?” I searched the work area and the ramp below me again for Mentu. Anger churned my stomach.
The supervisor sighed and picked at his teeth with a fingernail. “Don’t ask me. I make sure the blocks climb those ramps and settle into place. That is all I do.”
How had Mentu had allowed this disaster? Justice, truth, and divine order—the ma’at—made Egypt great and made a man great. I did not like to see ma’at disturbed.
On the ramp, a woman pushed past the workers, shoving them aside in her haste to reach the top. She gained the flat area where we stood and paused, her breath huffing out in dry gasps. In her hands she held two jars, brimming with enough barley beer to allow the boy to feel fierce anger rather than beg for his own death. The surgeon came behind, readying his saw. The boy had a chance at life if the leg ended in a stump. Allowed to fester, the injury would surely kill him.
I masked my faintness with my anger and spun away.
“Mentu!” My yell carried past the lines below me, down into the desert below, perhaps to the quarry beyond. He should never have allowed so inexperienced a boy to place stones. Where had he been this morning when the gangs formed teams?
The men nearby were silent, but the work down on the plateau continued, heedless of the boy’s pain. The rhythmic ring of chisel on quarry stone punctuated the collective grunts of the quarry men, their chorus drifting across the desert, but Mentu did not answer the call.
Was he still in his bed? Mentu and I had spent last evening pouring wine and reminiscing late into the night about the days of our youth. Some of them anyway. Always one story never retold.
Another scream behind me. That woman had best get to pouring the barley beer. I could do nothing more here. I moved through the line of men, noting their nods of approval for the effort I’d made on behalf of one of their own.
When I reached the base and turned back toward the flat-topped black basalt stone where I conferred with Khons and Ded’e, I saw that another had joined them. My brother.
I slowed my steps, to allow that part of my heart to harden like mudbricks in the sun, then pushed forward.
They laughed together as I approached, the easy laugh of men comfortable with one another. My older brother leaned against the stone, his arms crossed in front of him. He stood upright when he saw me.
“Ahmose,” I said with a slight nod. “What brings you to the site?”
His smile turned to a smirk. “Just wanted to see how the project proceeds.”
“Hmm.” I focused my attention once more on the plans. The wind grabbed at the edges of the papyrus, and I used a stone cubit rod, thicker than my thumb, to weight it. “The three of us must recalculate stone transfer rates—”
“Khons seems to believe your changes are going to sink the project,” Ahmose said. He smiled, his perfect teeth gleaming against his dark skin.
The gods had favored Ahmose with beauty, charm, and a pleasing manner that made him well loved among the court. But I had been blessed with a strong mind and a stronger will. And I was grand vizier.
I lifted my eyes once more to the pyramid rising in perfect symmetry against the blue sky, and the thousands of men at my command. “The Horizon of Khufu will look down upon your children’s grandchildren, Ahmose,” I said. I leaned over my charts and braced my fingertips on the stone. “When you have long since sailed to the west, still it will stand.”
He bent beside me, his breath in my ear. “You always did believe you could do anything. Get away with anything.”
The animosity in his voice stiffened my shoulders.
“Khons, Ded’e, if you will.” I gestured to the charts. Khons snorted and clomped to my side. And Ded’e draped his forearms across the papyrus.
“It must be gratifying,” Ahmose whispered, “to command men so much more experienced than yourself.”
I turned on him, my smile tight. “And it must be disheartening to see your younger brother excel while you languish in a job bestowed only out of pity—”
A boy appeared, sparing me the indignity of exchanging blows with my brother. His sidelock identified him as a young prince, and I recognized him as the youngest of Henutsen, one of Khufu’s lesser wives.
“His Majesty Khufu, the king, Horus,” the boy said, “the strong bull, beloved by the goddess of truth—”
“Yes, yes. Life, Health, Strength!” I barked. “What does Khufu want?” I was in no mood for the string of titles.
The boy’s eyes widened and he dragged a foot through the sand. “My father commands the immediate presence of Grand Vizier Hemiunu before the throne.”
“Did he give a reason?”
The prince pulled on his lower lip. “He is very angry today.”
“Very well.” I waved him off and turned to Khons and Ded’e, rubbing the tension from my forehead. “We will continue later.”
The two overseers made their escape before Ahmose and I had a chance to go at it again. I flicked a glance in his direction, then rolled up my charts, keeping my breathing even.
Behind me Ahmose said, “Perhaps Khufu has finally seen his error in appointing you vizier.” Like a sharp poke in the kidneys when our mother wasn’t watching.
“Excuse me, Ahmose.” I pushed past him, my hands full of charts. “I have an important meeting.”
Sunday, March 1, 2009
DANIEL'S DEN by Brandt Dodson; Standing Before the Lions in New Orleans
(First, my apologies to Brandt Dodson and Harvest House Publishers. Due to "technical difficulties" review is sadly belated. It looks like the blog and I are on friendly terms again today, though)
New Orleans post-Katrina. Daniel Borden is an anomaly: a truly honest accountant, square deal and Boy Scout ethics who has built a reputation as a straight arrow. His best friend is his Labrador that he rescues from a shelter, and the two of them are happy in their ritualistic schedule. No surprises, just a secure and ordered life heading for success in the accounting world. Daniel has no idea that the rug is about to be pulled out from under him and the ceiling come crashing down. And all because he audited the files of his coworker that died suddenly and suspiciously. Suspicions don't end with the death, as Daniel finds out when he opens the files.
Half a continent away in Virginia, Laura is another honest person struggling to get by, taking care of her son and trying to make a go of the bed and breakfast that was the dream for her and her husband before he died. When a strange man appears, grabs her son and tries to force Laura into selling her property, she knows something is very wrong. The reader knows there must be some connection between this overly zealous real estate agent and the events in New Orleans. As it turns out, the connection is deep and devious, involving people that neither Laura nor Daniel would have wanted in their lives were it possible to change the situation. It turns out to be a life or death situation for both of them and Laura's son before long.
Daniel's Den is a murder mystery taken right out of today's society, including identity theft, technological tracking and listening devices, and computer hacking. Unscrupulous characters backed by seemingly unlimited wealth and power; how can anyone stand up to them or survive if standing in their way?
Laura and Daniel are like many people today who want to make it on their own. They think that if they work hard enough at it, they can make things right. Neither one of them considers including God in their plans, but they are up against forces beyond their abilities to control or conquer on their own.
For those who enjoy mysteries, in particular murder mysteries, Daniel's Den is a sure bet. We know who the bad guys are early on, or at least some of them, but there is still a lot to unravel before the whole scheme is revealed. The use of modern technology smacks of real possibilities, although I don't know enough about it personally to know whether some of it exists only in Mr. Dodson's head. The whole story is completely believable. To me, that's what makes it scary. It's also part of what makes it a great story.
Of course there is some violence in the story; after all, it deals with cold-blooded murderers who don't think twice about eliminating anyone who is in the way or has witnessed too much. Yet there is no gratuitous or overly graphic violence. Some of the bad guys are rather two-dimensional, but the main ones are fairly well developed. While there is a bit of romance, it is an undertone with no sexual actions at all, other than maybe a kiss. And while it is definitely a story that leads to the importance of God in our lives, it never becomes preachy or overly trite about the need for a relationship with God.
Overall, I recommend Daniel's Den to all mystery lovers and those who want to read good literature with a Christian world view. Even for those who don't care about the viewpoint: it's a compelling tale.
You can purchase this book at just about any Christian bookstore, as well as Barnes and Noble, Borders, and other book stores. Online the book is available through Barnes and Noble,
Christianbook.com, Booksamillion, and Amazon.com, among others.For more information about the book, author Brandt Dodson, and his other works, check out his website at http://www.brandtdodson.com
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