Excerpt from Too Bad to Die by Francine Mathews, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Did your dad give you a pet name? You know—one that only he used?"

"He called me Johnnie. That means Ian in English."

There was a pause as Hudders worked this out. "I thought Ian was English," he said cautiously.

Crikey. He didn't know anything.

"Still." Hudders's whisper was triumphant. "That means you were his pal. Even though you're beaten three times a week. I bet your dad liked you much more than your old grind of a brother, with his tonsils cut out."

Ian curled in a ball and thought about it. He thought about Peter, who could cry in Mamma's bed with Michael and Richard because Mokie was killed. They would feel special because they were sad—not like him, blubbing because he'd been slippered. He would never be a Hero. He was glad that Hudders at least was lying there, between him and death.

"Let's have a club," Ian whispered. "Just you and me."

"What kind of club?"

"For people who are too bad to die. And if any of the others are bad enough, we shall allow them to join."

Hudders sat up. "But if they're good, we won't tell them a thing. Even if they pull out our toenails."

"Agreed. And violins, or writing, shall always be allowed. It doesn't matter whether they're wet."

Ian offered his hand. Hudders shook it.

"The Too Bad Club," he said. "For guys like us, who are forced to live."





DAY ONE

CAIRO

THANKSGIVING DAY,
NOVEMBER 25, 1943





CHAPTER 1

For nearly four thousand years the Great Pyramid of Giza had flung its shadow like a massive shroud across the desert and silenced those who gazed upon it. Before the forging of steel, it was the tallest man-made structure on earth; and even after steel dwarfed it, the stones remained terrifying in their bulk. Their blind faces. Their inspiration of dread.

The pyramid was a Wonder in an age that had outgrown them, or thought it had, and people were more desperate to see it when its size was no longer the point. They liked to believe that in surpassing the Great Pyramid, the Modern World had conquered what it represented.

Which was Death.

The founders of Giza's Mena House Hotel knew good value when they saw it. They were English, and understood that travelers paid more for a view. They bought Khedive Ismael's old hunting lodge in Giza and added balconies to every room, expecting their guests to sit on them and gaze at the pyramid in the fading desert light. For decades, most of the guests did. They were grateful and blessed as they drank their gin. They talked of hiring camels and crawling through tunnels to the burial chamber of Khufu.

Not Pamela.

The Great Pyramid filled the windows of her father-in-law's rented villa, a stone's throw from Mena House. Pamela might have hurled a book at it, or perhaps an empty champagne bottle. One of her strappy dancing shoes. But she drew her curtains instead, and blocked out the sight.

The pyramids—Great and Small—sickened her with their stillness. The flat, impenetrable stones devoured light and exhaled darkness. They sat like God at her elbow, assuring her that she was tiny and mortal, and she hated them for it. In the rare moments when she was alone like this, Pamela could feel a grave beneath her toes, and it frightened her. She was waltzing on the edge.

She turned her back to the window—her gorgeous, supple, peach-flushed back—and stared at herself in the mirror. Like everything Pamela possessed, her evening gown was far too expensive for war. It informed the world that she had powerful friends. And that they gave her things.

Her hair glowed like warm brass. Her dark blue eyes were restless. She wanted a good time tonight, because in two days they would all fly to Tehran, and Averell would be there. She would drink deep and seduce every man within reach. She had a talent for it.

Excerpted from Too Bad to Die by Francine Mathews. Copyright © 2015 by Francine Mathews. Excerpted by permission of Riverhead Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.