The Stolen Queen is an engaging historical mystery standalone by Fiona Davis. Due out 7th Jan 2025 from Penguin Random House on their Dutton imprint, it's 352 pages and will be available in hardcover, paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links.
This is a well written character driven historical mystery with enough Egyptology, history, exotic locations, and intrigue to satisfy, along with a dual timeline mystery/tragedy and lots of high-end NYC glamour centered around the Metropolitan Museum and the wildly successful Tutankhamen artifact exhibit in 1978.
The author is adept at characterization and setting and they are rendered realistically. Main character Charlotte is likeable, intelligent, driven, and haunted by tragedy from decades earlier. The mystery itself is full of interesting Egypt history, archaeology, and well paced (with the possible exception of the denouement and resolution, which were a trifle rushed and tied-up-in-a-perfect-bow).
The guilty parties are suitably loathsome and awful, and the ending is satisfying. It's a standalone, without any suggestion of a follow up, which is refreshing in the current publishing climate which generally requires two follow-up books in the bag before publishing the first.
It would make an excellent choice for public library acquisition, home use, or possibly a nice buddy/group read. The author/publisher have included an interesting afterword as well as an abbreviated bibliography for further reading.
Four stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes
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