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BookBrowse Reviews The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips

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The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips

The Egyptologist

A Novel

by Arthur Phillips
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • First Published:
  • Aug 31, 2004, 400 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jun 2005, 400 pages
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BookBrowse:


A suave, elegant novel, replete with sinuously composed sentences and delicious wordplay

Phillips has followed up his debut novel Prague (also recommended at BookBrowse) with something completely different.  The story is set in the early 1920s and told primarily in the form of letters and journal entries from the key protagonists, who include a more than usually strange English Egyptologist by the name of Ralph Trilipush, and Harold Ferrell, an Australian detective, who believes Trilipush maybe implicated in the death of another Egyptologist.  As Kirkus Reviews writes 'this is a suave, elegant novel, replete with sinuously composed sentences and delicious wordplay....Phillips' formidable research and witty prose make this one well worth your time. He's quite possibly a major novelist in the making.'

This review first ran in the June 1, 2005 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.

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