A masked stranger offers to reveal an Egyptian queen"s lost tomb... and Amelia Peabody and her irascible archeologist husband, Radcliffe Emerson, are intrigued, to say the least. When the guide mysteriously disappears before he tells his secret, the husband-and-wife team sail to Thebes to follow his trail, helped-and hampered-by their teenage son, Ramses, and beautiful ward, Nefret. But before the sands of time shift very far, all will be risking their lives foiling murderers, kidnappers, grave robbers, and ancient curses. And the Hippopotamus Pool? It"s a legend of war and wits that Amelia is translating, one that alerts her to a hippo of a different type-a nefarious, overweight art dealer who may become her next archenemy!