Alexandria, 47BCE: Cleopatra shares the throne with her brother Ptolemy under the auspices of Julius Caesar, by whom Cleopatra is heavily pregnant with child.

A shipment of new coin meant to reset the shaky Egyptian economy has been stolen,and the Queen’s Eye has been murdered. Queen Cleopatra must turn to her childhood friend Tetisheri, to find the missing shipment and bring a murderer to justice

I was provided with this book from Netgalley in exchange for my review. Thank you!

As much as I claim to enjoy the adventures of one Sherlock Holmes and anything set in the Victorian era, there is another era of time that has had my interest for just as long – that of Ancient Egypt. So when I saw this book listed on Netgalley, I immediately put my name in to request said book.

I am so glad my request was granted and I was able to read this book because I personally enjoyed it from cover to cover.

Set in the ancient city of Alexandria, Death of an Eye follows the young Tetisheri as she attempts to solve a murder on behalf of her queen. The Queen’s Eye has been murdered – an average woman who lives and works in the city and is charged with keeping tabs on certain individuals and reporting back to Cleopatra – and a large sum of coins has been stolen. Finding out how the Eye was murdered is simple enough, finding out who would want to murder her and why is another matter.

Stabenow has a masterful grip of the language as she creates the various settings in the novel. From the back streets of Alexandria to the home of Cleopatra herself, Stabenow’s writing makes it easy to envision these places. This however is also a drawback because with so much put towards setting the scenes, there is little left for the actual mystery itself.

Names of characters can also be a bit problematic as many of them use nicknames and Stabenow uses the given names and nicknames interchangeably. There were a few times I found myself having to reread a passage just so I could get a better grasp of who was talking.

On the whole, I enjoyed reading Death of an Eye. With Elizabeth Peters’ passing, there is precious little fiction dedicated to Egypt and Ancient Egypt in particular. Death of an Eye is a promising start to what I hope is an enjoyable series. Readers who liked Elizabeth Peters’ series should definitely check this one out.