The Curse

by Harold Robbins, Junius Podrug

Overview

Art investigator Madison Dupre knows a fake when she sees it. When the mysterious Dr. Kaseem offers to pay her a handsome sum to "ransom" a scarab stolen from the tomb of King Tut, her gut tells her to walk away. Since she still needs to pay the rent, Madison throws caution to wind and prepares to search for the Heart of Egypt.

Before she can pack a suitcase, she finds herself framed for murder and on the run. Her leads take her to Stonehenge, England, where a Druid sex cult worships a "goddess of love," a woman with enough personal wealth to buy a host of admirers. Madison finds an admirer of her own in Rafi al-Din, an Egyptian antiquities investigator she knows she can't trust, but who arouses her passions.

Drawn to Egypt in search of the scarab, Madison is trapped in the land of the Pharaohs when her passport is seized at the airport. She knows she is being played by Kaseem, who believes the Heart has the power to galvanize the masses to support his secret cause.

From the famed Khan marketplace, to the Valley of the Kings and the incredible colossi at Abu Simbel, Madison treads a careful path among tomb robbers, assassins, and political fanatics. She must dodge curses both ancient and modern to stay alive.

The wild and epic stories of Harold Robbins live on in this sweeping series by Junius Podrug.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780765380227
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	12/31/2013
Series:	Madison Dupre , #4
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	296,167
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 6.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Born in New York City, HAROLD ROBBINS was one of the world's bestselling authors, writing novels that often mirrored his own experiences and that were peopled by characters he had met. His novels include Never Love a Stranger, The Carpetbaggers, and Dreams Die First.

JUNIUS PODRUG was selected by the Robbins Estate to carry on the ideas, uncompleted works, and tradition of Harold Robbins because he was both a friend of Harold's and a writer whose books Harold admired. He is the author of Frost of Heaven and Presumed Guilty.

Editorial Reviews

Harold Robbins is a master.” —Playboy

“Robbins's books are packed with action, sustained by a strong narrative, and are given vitality by his own colorful life.” —The Wall Street Journal

“A mile-a-minute page-turner…all the suspense, action, and sex you'd expect from a Harold Robbins novel.” —William Martin, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Constitution, on The Devil to Pay

From the Publisher

Podrug’s tepid sixth Harold Robbins thriller (after 2009’s The Shroud) feels dated not only because its Egyptian political regime doesn’t reflect the events of early 2011 but also because its protagonist, disgraced art investigator Madison Dupre, too often behaves like an unintelligent, man-hungry heroine from an earlier era. Needing the money, Madison accepts the responsibility of authenticating a legendary scarab known as the Heart of Egypt stolen from Tutankhamen’s tomb, but she gets caught in the cross-fire as several agencies seek the artifact and the power it wields over the citizens of Egypt. The various plot elements, including a curse associated with King Tut’s tomb and a mysterious assassin code-named Sphinx, never gel. Even an affair with a rakish antiquities inspector and multiple international settings fail to add spice. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

Returning from the dead for yet another encore, two headline-making names, boy king Tutankhamen and megaselling Robbins, partnered once again by living collaborator Podrug, power another case for antiquities investigator Madison Dupre. All right, "power" may not be the most exact word for this shrill, inept thriller. To be sure, Madison, tossed out of her cushy curatorial post at New York's Piedmont Museum after a spot of high-profile trouble (The Looters, 2007, etc.) and forced to live from one freelance check to the next, takes it very seriously indeed when someone shows up at her apartment door and tries to kill her. But well-informed readers already know that Fatima Sari's heart isn't in the job she's taken on for the evil mastermind codenamed Sphinx; after all, the weapon is a letter opener, she wields it with little conviction and soon after her failed attempt at murder she's thrown herself under the wheels of a subway, leaving the heroine, who witnesses her death, to wonder why Dr. Mounir Kassem has hand-picked Madison to authenticate the Heart of Egypt, a scarab Sir Jacob Radcliff looted from King Tut's tomb back in 1922. Now that the scarab's been stolen from the Radcliff collection and held for ransom, its owners, if that's what you want to call them, need to make sure they're paying for the real thing and not a counterfeit executed by Jeremy Botwell or Quintin Rees. Desperate for cash, Madison signs on and flies to Cairo, where Egyptian police officer Rafi al Din, whose daughter Dalila is dying of leukemia, promptly confiscates her passport and takes her to bed. There'll be more featherweight adventures, confrontations, double-crosses, revelations, couplings and triplings, but zero atmosphere or sense of place as the characters hurtle from one picture-postcard location to the next. Madison's summary nails it: "Murder, madness, and greed swirled around me like a Mojave dust devil." You go, girl.

Kirkus Reviews