Radcliffe, the irascible husband of Victorian Egyptologist Amelia Peabody, is living up to his reputation as 'The Father of Curses'. Denied permission to dig at the pyramids of Dahshoor, Emerson is awarded instead the 'pyramids' of Mazghunah - countless mounds of rubble in the middle of nowhere.

When Lady Baskerville's husband Sir Henry dies after discovering what may have been an undisturbed royal tomb in Luxor, she appeals to eminent archaeologist Radcliffe Emerson and his wife Amelia to take over the excavation.

Amelia Peabody, a thoroughly Victorian feminist who takes the stuffy world of archaeology by storm with her shocking men's pants and no-nonsense attitude, decides to use her substantial inheritance to see the world. On her travels, she rescues a gentlewoman in distress - Evelyn Barton-Forbes - and the two become friends.

Amelia and her husband Emerson set off for a archaeological site in the Sudan, only to be drawn into the search for an African explorer and his young bride who went missing twelve years back. They survive the desert, the death of their camels, and the perfidy of their guides, only to find themselves taken prisoner in a lost city and civilization.

The chase is on - and Amelia Peabody and Co are in the thick of it! 1922 - convinced that the tomb of the little-known King Tutankhamon lies somewhere in the Valley of the Kings, Emerson has tried to persuade his rivals Lord Carnavon and Howard Carter to hand over their digging rights in the valley to him - but they resist.

There's more trouble in store for an intrepid Egyptologist. This time it is of a distinctly personal nature. Her niece's new, Egyptian, husband stands accused of forging priceless antiquities. Is he guilty, or merely the fall guy for some unscrupulous villain?

Amelia finds good luck - in her dreams! 'Stay away from tomb Twenty-Al' says an ominous message delivered by an unseen hand. The year is 1903, the place is Cairo, and it's time for Amelia's ninth adventure. She is asked for help by an old friend whose husband has fallen for a spiritualist.

It is 1914 and Amelia Peabody and her husband Emerson are back in Egypt for another season of archaeological excavation. But this year a new menace hangs over the dig: rumblings of war abound in Europe while over in the East, Turkish and German forces are massing for an attack on the Suez Canal.

Undeterred by world war and enemy submarines, Amelia and Emerson set sail once again for Egypt, where ghosts of an ancient past and spectres of a present-day evil hover silently over an inscrutable land.

It is New Year's Eve, 1917. Risking winter storms and German torpedoes, the Emersons are heading for Egypt once again: Amelia, Emerson, their son Ramses and his wife Nefret. Emerson is counting on a long season of excavation without distractions but this proves to be a forlorn hope. Yet again they unearth a dead body in a looted tomb.