The Murder of King Tut: The Plot to Kill the Child King – A nonfiction Thriller

James Patterson and Martin Dugard
Little, Brown and Company (2009)
ISBN 9780316034043 
Reviewed by Cherie Fisher for Reader Views (11/09)


If you are seriously studying Egyptology and are looking for a textbook full of facts about King Tut, then this book is probably not for you.  But if you are a James Patterson fan who enjoys reading research interwoven with a good story, then you will enjoy this book.  It is obvious that Patterson and Dugard did a lot of research for this story, but it is written in a reader-friendly way that makes it hard to put down.  How much is absolute fact and how much is supposition?  I am not sure anyone can really answer the age-old question about what really happened to King Tut with absolute surety, but I am glad to have learned so much more about the life of the King and the times that he lived. 

To capture the full mystery of King Tut, the story is written in two different timeframes.  It starts with Amenhotep the Magnificent’s death, his successor, and how King Tut was rose to power at such a young age with assistance from his stepmother, Queen Nefertiti.  They lived in dangerous political times with the constant threat of being murdered or overthrown at the forefront.  The only ally King Tut had after his stepmother’s death was his child bride, sister and wife, Queen Ankhesenpaaten, who, according to the authors, also met an untimely death so that the royal scribe, Aye, could seize power. 

Over 3,000 years later, it was Howard Carter’s talent and luck that got him sponsorship by the Amherst family of England in the 1890s to travel to Egypt to become an Egyptologist.  He was convinced that King Tut’s long-hidden tomb was somewhere in an obscure spot in the Valley of the King’s even though many other experts said all the tombs had been found.  After many years of trials, success and failure, Howard Carter finally discovered the answer to one of the oldest mysteries when he uncovered King Tut’s tomb in 1922. 

Overall, “The Murder of King Tut” was a very well-written book and I enjoyed reading a nonfiction novel by James Patterson.  He and Martin Dugard did an excellent job and I certainly hope to see more books of this kind written by them.

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