sams84 's review for:

The Murder of King Tut: The Plot to Kill the Child King - A Nonfiction Thriller by James Patterson, Martin Dugard

2.0

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My first thought when it comes to this book is uhmmmmm. I can kind of see why Patterson wanted to write a book about the life of Tutankhamen given the mystery surrounding his death but I can't understand why it has been marketed as a non-fiction and why it was written in the format it was if non-fiction is what he was going for. As I have a rather keen interest in Ancient Egypt the claim that Patterson and his co-author Martin Dugard did huge amounts of research is rather laughable (if not shameful) given the number of historical inaccuracies and outright errors that are found throughout the book, including the opening slave scene (anyone with a passing interest in Egyptology knows that the workers were highly skilled and highly valued, not slaves), the facts of which can all be easily found in any basic Egyptology book. Ignoring the historical inaccuracies (I can't see this as a non-fiction work at all) the attempts to breathe life into the characters is also rather painful, again given that very little matches what is actually known about them and each of their stories seems to have been written to fit the theory ultimately presented rather than being based on actual information, I was particularly irked by the relationships between the royal family members (not to mention Nefertiti's lament about Akhenaten being mummified, this was an important part of their belief system, it was vital for entering the afterlife) and the lack of credit given to Tutankhamen as when he took the throne he reversed his father's decisions and returned the kingdom to it's traditional multideity beliefs (also not to mention the more accepted explanations for the King's death other than the somewhat outdated one favoured here). If you can ignore all the historical inaccuracies/errors, put aside any knowledge you have of Egyptology and accept a rather simplistic story lacking any great detail this isn't a bad read, it passes the time at least. But a non-fiction work it is not. Maybe it will ignite an interest in Egyptology in readers that it may otherwise have passed by...one can only hope.