Murder of King Tut by James Patterson
Posted by megmme on November 19, 2009
Overall Grade: F
From my glowing review of The Heretic Queen, you have probably guessed I love everything involving Ancient Egypt. With that being said, I wanted to love this book but it fell incredibly short of expectations.
I started out so hopeful when, during the prologue, the Patterson stressed how much research he had done for the book. I’m certainly no Egyptologist but I was frustrated when, barely into the story, I started to notice several historical errors. For example, in Akhenaten’s death scene, Nefertiti makes some comments about how she will miss her husband’s “brain” as though that is the seat of his thinking and soul. Patterson rightly corrects this later by noting that Egyptians believed the seat of the soul to be housed in the heart but the damage was done.
That was just one of my gripes about this book and relatively minor in comparison to my largest problem with the book–I got more than a third of the way through and Tut had been mentioned in ONE of the scenes that took place in Ancient Egypt. ONE scene? Isn’t the book titled the Murder of King Tut? Patterson spent so much time setting up the family history there was barely any space left to actually discuss the reign and murder of his main character.
The book also has a frustrating format; the narrative has two separate tracks–one set in Ancient Egypt and the other during the time of Howard Carter (the eventual discoverer of Tut’s tomb. I have no idea why Carter’s story was included in the story; Carter is an interesting man and worthy of his own biography but it added very little to the book.
Even if I had ignored the poor format and historical errors, the story just isn’t compelling and never really takes off. All in all, this book was a serious disappointment. If you are looking for a good historical narrative set in the times of Ancient Egypt, look elsewhere because this book contains too little focus on the main characters. If you are looking for a good examination of the Murder of King Tut and the theories and facts involved, you should read Bob Brier’s work on the subject–The Murder of Tutankhamen–it is a much more academic look at the subject.
This book unfortunately falls into the “didn’t finish” category. I wanted to struggle through and finish but I hate to waste precious reading time on a book I find inaccurate and poorly written.
Audiobook Details
The reader, Joe Barett, does an adequate job. He isn’t an incredibly engaging reader but I don’t want to judge him on this book–I’m afraid I’m holding the poor quality of the book against him when it clearly isn’t his doing.
Run time: 5 hours, 59 minutes
