When Hani, an Egyptian diplomat under Akhenaten, is sent to investigate the murder of a useful bandit leader in Syria, he encounters corruption, tangled relationships, and yet more murder. His investigation is complicated by the new king’s religious reforms, which have struck Hani’s own family to the core. Hani’s mission is to amass enough evidence for his su-periors to prosecute the wrongdoers despite the king’s protection—but not just every superior can be trusted. And maybe not even the king! Winner of the 2020 Geoffrey Chaucer Award for historical fiction before 1750. Trigger Warnings: Sexual abuse of children

Four years into Akhenaten’s new regime, the dissatisfaction of those who practiced the old religion of Amen-Ra is growing. Hani, a diplomat already under the king’s surveillance because of the disappearance of his firebrand Amen priest brother-in-law, gets drawn into an investigation for the Beloved Royal Wife, who is being blackmailed. Meanwhile, the new vassal king of A’amu, lodged at Hani’s house until the king grants him an audience, is showing himself to be none too loyal. Hani must walk the line between his oath to the king and his conscience.

During the Great Jubilee of the Aten, a mysterious series of tomb robberies takes place, and witnesses begin to die. With plague ravaging the palace, where Hani’s daughter is a physician, and Egypt’s ally, Naharin, collapsing into the hands of a usurper, Hani must make sense of what is happening. And who in high places is his real enemy.

Hani doesn’t know what to make of it when the king starts honoring him, but he must still find the man who killed a foreign ambassador right under the roof of the Egyptian commissioner in Kumidi—a man whose past intersects bizarrely with Hani’s. And then, the queen of the new coregent has a special task for him which may involve dragging Hani’s nineteen-year-old daughter into court politics. He must find a way to see justice done and yet protect his family… and his conscience.

Hani is set to investigate thefts from the king’s household that turn out to be related to a more sinister attempt on the king’s life. Meanwhile, witnesses to the crown prince’s dodgy birth begin to die, and Hani fears for his daughter and her friend, who were also present. More secrets emerge about the prince’s identity, and Hani finds himself caught between the government and the radical revolutionaries who want to restore Amen-Ra by civil war, among them the queen, whom Hani has sworn to serve. Can Hani reconcile his desire for peace with his devotion to the King of the Gods?

Egyptian diplomat Hani must secretly obtain a Hittite bridegroom for Queen Meryet-amen, but Ay and the faction behind Prince Tut-ankh-aten are opposed—to the point of violence. Does the death of an artisan have anything to do with Ay’s determination to see his grandson on the throne? Then, another death brings Egypt to the brink of war… Hani’s diplomatic skills will be pushed to the limit in this final book in The Lord Hani Mysteries.