In a parallel series of correspondences from an Australian nursing home in the mid-1950s, a former Australian private investigator, Harold Ferrell, details a case he investigated 30 years earlier to one Laurence Macy III, nephew of the earlier mentioned Margaret Finneran, once betrothed of Ralph M. Trilipush. With a thick Australian twang, Ferrell dictates the story of millionaire brewer, Barnabas Davies, who before his death employed Ferrell and an army of other international investigators to find the various progeny of said Davis throughout the world. Ferrell spends most of his time on the mysterious Paul Caldwell, first son of Barnabas Davies and an impoverished Australian tart. Ferrell’s investigation takes him from Sidney, to England, to America. Ferrell’s story of Caldwell follows the ghost from his poverty in Sidney, to his life in a library run by Communists, to a stint in the circus and finally his participation with an Australian Expeditionary Force in Egypt, where Caldwell disappears and is thought to have died in 1918.

This represents the epidermis of the story. The Egyptologist is chock full of clues and experienced mystery readers will pick up on them readily and be perfectly correct in his or her assumptions. That fact does not make is book any less enjoyable. The narration and language associated with each of the major characters makes this audio book a must-listen.