Tales of Secret Egypt

Sax Rohmer, the master of exotic menace who gave us Fu Manchu, turns his attention to the shadowed bazaars and moonlit dunes of Cairo in this collection of interconnected tales. The year is 1918, and Egypt simmers with colonial tension and ancient magic. Our guide is Kernaby Pasha, a man of means and curiosity who watches a one-eyed beggar with growing unease, a seemingly harmless figure who sends his friend Ali Mohammed fleeing in terror. What begins as a mystery of stolen goods and threatened lives spirals into something far stranger: an underworld of dark magic, stolen relics, and practitioners who traffic in powers older than the pyramids themselves. Kernaby discovers that his involvement with Ali Mohammed and the enigmatic magician Abû Tabâh has placed him at the center of a conspiracy that mixes the esoteric traditions of Egypt with very mortal dangers. These stories drip with the exotic menace and colonial-era dread that made Rohmer famous. They also offer a fascinating window into how early twentieth-century writers imagined the occult possibilities of the ancient Nile, a world of secret societies, mystical threats, and the constant thrill of the unknown.