A rash of murders taxes the sharp mind of Amerotke, the chief judge of Egypt at the start of the turbulent reign of Hatusu, some 3,500 years ago, when the ancient Egyptian empire was at its peak. The killings, beginning at the Hall of the Underworld, a desert maze with an evil reputation, seem intended to disrupt Hatusu's reign as possibly the first woman to become Pharaoh Queen of Egypt.