A World of Chaos

I have now finished Nick Drake's Egypt trilogy.  After finishing Egypt: The Book of Chaos, I do feel that Drake saved the best for last.  I have previously reviewed volumes 1 and 2 in this blog and readers will see that I am a fan of Drake's work.  However, he greatly expands the scope of his interests and the novel itself travels far beyond the comfort of home in recounting the final mystery and adventure experienced by Rahotep, the Seeker of Mysteries.
In this volume, Drake takes his readers into a world that is in transition and has fallen on hard times.  I don't know if he intended the parallel or not, but I cannot help but make comparisons between our present 21st century world that is also full of problems and the end of the 18th dynasty of Egypt that found itself on similarly slippery footing.  Rahotep is still working for the Medjay, but politics (his bureuacratic boor of a boss, Nebamun) and economics (he still needs to support his family) lead Rahotep into the world of being a hired gun.  Of course, working for his dear friend and mentor, Nakht, who we met in the first book and who figured more prominently in the second, is not the worst possible situation Rahotep could find himself in.  Drake describes this new dynamic: "Once upon a time, I had been an invited guest at Nakht's famous social functions. Tonight I was here because I was working. Nakht had started to employ me occasionally as his personal bodyguard, saying he could trust my discretion in a way he could trust no one else. With his customary tact, he had made it seem as if it was I who was doing him the favour. And given the unreliable and ever-diminishing payments from my Medjay work, and the spiralling costs of even the most basic of foods, I was absolutely desperate for any means to provide for my family."
Still, the book opens with Rahotep at a crime scene where he discovers a mysterious piece of papyrus in the mouth of one of the murder victims.  When Nebamun arrives on the scene to shoo away Rahotep, Rahotep keeps the papyrus a secret from his "boss."After finishing his security work for Nakht, Rahotep seeks refuge in a bar where he happens to encounter his former assistant, Khety.  Khety has been promoted and no longer works for or often with Rahotep.  However, he has discovered some important facts about a new gang of opium smugglers who are terrorizing other gangs and seem intent to corner the market on opium in Thebes and elsewhere throughout Egypt.  Though Rahotep is intrigued, his cynicism keeps him from agreeing to help Khety work on this new development in the Theban drug trade.
The next day while accompanying Nakht to a meeting that turns out to be at the Malkata Palace, Rahotep confides in Nakht about his meeting with Khety.  This narrative thread is overshadowed however when Rahotep learns of the true reason that Nakht asked him to accompany him to this meeting.  Rahotep finds himself before the King, the villainous Ay, and the Queen, Ankhesenamun, who befriended Rahotep in Volume 2, where she had previously been the wife of Tutankhamun. Once again, the marital affairs of the queen are of the highest concern.  Ay, who had been so important and powerful in the previous two volumes of this trilogy is dying.  With the imminent death of her husband, Ankhesenamun is concerned with the aftermath of Ay's death.  The figure of Horemheb who so desperately wanted to be made king in the previous volume looms even larger now.  He still controls the armies of Egypt and there does not seem to be any other Egyptian suitor who makes sense for Ankhesenamun.  However, she and most of the royals and the bureaucrats fear what life would be like under Horemheb, so the queen has come up with a most daring plan to circumvent the designs of Horemheb.
Egypt had been engaged in a long and seemingly unsuccessful war with the Hittite Empire to the North.  Ankhesenamun decides to send a letter to the Hittite King asking for him to send one of his sons to Egypt to become the new King of Egypt.  In one stroke, the war would end and both Empires would gain by such an alliance.  However, this mission cannot be conducted openly, so Nakht, the Hittite ambassador, Simut, the leader of the Palace Guards, and Rahotep will make a secret journey to the Hittites to bring the offer of marriage to them.  The queen personally asks Rahotep to go on this mission and he feels that he must accept such a request, if you can call it that.  To sweeten the offer, the Queen has authorized for Rahotep to succeed Nebamun as the Chief of the Thebes Medjay.  Furthermore, Nakht offers to allow Rahotep's family to live in his mansion during the duration of this trip.  If Nakht does not return, Rahotep and his family will inherit Nakht's house and his wealth.  Sounds like a great offer, but Rahotep, after his last adventure with Tutankhamun had promised his wife Tanefert that he would never leave his family again.  Now he must confront her with news that he is breaking his promise and under strict orders from the Queen, he cannot reveal what he is doing or where he is going.
As he did with his previous two volumes, Drake does a superb job with the dynamics of married couples.  In keeping with the more somber tone of this book, Drake shows how Rahotep's marriage has suffered over the years too.  "A little distance had opened between us, almost unnoticed, rarely acknowledged. We made love infrequently. The couch was for sleep at the end of exhausting days. I confided in her less often. Perhaps that is the fate of all marriages."
Rahotep did not mention the offer from the Queen, but goes into work the next day.  Here he discovers that his friend and former assistant Khety has been brutally murdered in the same manner as the victims from the crime scene that opened the narrative.  Rahotep is full of remorse, anger, and bitterness that Nebamun exacerbates when he arrives on the scene. He tells Rahotep that someone else will investigate this crime, but Rahotep demands to be given this case.  The argument ends with Rahotep punching Nebamun and losing his job because of it.
This gives Rahotep little choice but to go on this mission, though it causes a rift between him and his wife.  Rahotep learns that the leader of this new opium gang is called "Obsidian" and the opium source is high in the Bekaa Valley of what is present day Afghanistan.  Once Nakht learns of Khety's death, he forcefully tells Rahotep that he cannot do anything that would jeopardize their mission to the Hittites.  However, as they are traveling north towards the opium and going through many trading posts, Rahotep does try to do some investigating.  After almost getting killed in an opium house, Rahotep has the following vivid dream: "Later that night, when I had finally drifted off to sleep,  I dreamt a thin cord, clotted with blood, had been stitched into my mouth and tongue, and then down my throat, into my heart, where a thick black knot held it tight. And the knot was feeding on my heart's black blood, and growing bigger. And no matter how hard I pulled, no matter how much agony I tolerated as I pulled, I could not loosen that knot." This is but one instance of some of the phenomenal writing that Drake has in this gripping novel.
The group goes on and eventually confronts the enigmatic Army of Chaos that controls the opium growing region.  On their return journey from the Hittite Empire with one of the Hittite princes, Rahotep finds himself in a situation where he must betray his marital vows to save his life and potentially the life of Nakht and Simut.  In the course of this betrayal, he becomes an opium addict.  He is rescued from the Army of Chaos by the Egyptian Army and finds himself face to face with Horemheb.  Simut is imprisoned and Nakht is seemingly lost in the battle with the Egyptians.  Rahotep bargains with Horemheb in a plea to investigate the corruption within the Egyptian Army, who Rahotep has discovered is part of this new opium cartel.
Rahotep returns to Thebes in the course of his investigation, but is surprised by the reception he gets from the Queen and others.  They and even Rahotep's family had been told he had died in the battle.  The novel concludes with a masterful unveiling of the identity of Obsidian.  Nick Drake does justice to the world and characters he has created in this tremendous trilogy.  I don't know if there is much more he can do with Rahotep after the conclusion of this trilogy, but I would gladly accept more stories of his continuing adventures.  I would highly recommend this book to those of you who like historical fiction, detective fiction, and good old fashioned mysteries.