The Lion in Egypt

by Peter Danielson

Reviewed by Coral

The Shepherd Kings now control half of Egypt and are moving to conquer the rest. But Benu, an Egyptain general said to have risen from the dead, wrecks havoc in their lands.

In Memphis, home to the last remaining Egyptian stronghold, internal fighting once again threatens the defense against the invaders. Shobai’s wife, Mereet, finds herself in great danger when she inadvertently comes across evidence of treason against the Pharaoh in Memphis. Who can she trust? One wrong move and it could cost her family their lives.

Determined to rescue his friend, Ben-Hadad has travelled to Egypt but has not had much luck in finding Joseph. Instead he has found himself loyal friends who would risk it all to save his life when Benu marks him for death as a traitor.

I enjoyed this book, though I thought there was at least one plot line too many. The whole story in Africa, about Akhilleus negotiating treaties and securing trade routes was kind of pointless, in my opinion. It didn’t really move the main story with the Shepherd Kings forward.

I still found Benu to be a more sympathetic character than the people who betrayed him in the last book. Though I understand his change of heart in the end.

Considering the time gap between books 1 and 2, we are spending a lot of time with the same characters through these books. I kind of wish we could speed up again.

I didn’t notice it in the first three books of the series, but the author had a lot of instances in this book where he would write something like “and he, Benu, would then,” or “and that was for him, Hadad, to learn”. If you are just going to say the name of the person right after, just cut out the he/him stuff. It was repeated so often, it got to be really annoying.

Grade: B