Yusuf Khalifa Series - Paul Sussman

Paul Sussman (July 11, 1966 – May 31, 2012) was a best-selling English author, archaeologist and journalist. His novels have been described as "the intelligent reader's answer to the Da Vinci Code" by The Independent.

The Lost Army Of Cambyses (Yusuf Khalifa #1)
A mutilated corpse washes up on the banks of the Nile, an antiques dealer is murdered, and an eminent British archae-ologist is found dead at the ancient necropolis of Saqqara. At first, the incidents appear unconnected. However, Inspector Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor police is suspicious. So is the archaeologist's daughter, Tara Mullray. As they both seek to uncover the truth, they find themselves thrown together in a desperate race for survival. From a mysterious fragment of an ancient hieroglyphic text to rumors of a fabulous lost tomb in the Theban Hills, from the shimmering waters of the Nile to the dusty backstreets of Cairo, Khalifa and Mullray are drawn deeper into a labyrinth of violence, intrigue, and betrayal. It is a path that will eventually lead them into the forbidding, barren heart of the western desert, and to the answer to one of the greatest mysteries of the ancient world.

The Last Secret Of The Temple (Yusuf Khalifa #2)
When the body of hotel owner Jan Weiss is discovered at Malqata, an archeological site on the west bank of the Nile, it looks like a routine investigation for Inspector Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor police. But the more the detective finds out about Weiss, the more he is reminded of the brutal killing of an Israeli woman at Karnak years ago -- a murder for which he has always suspected the wrong man had been convicted. Despite opposition from his superiors and his own misgivings about working with the Israelis, Khalifa re-opens the case and teams up with hard-nosed Jerusalem detective Arieh Ben Roi.

At the same time journalist Eva Town receives an anonymous letter at her Jerusalem home. It requests her help in contacting “Al-Mulassam” (“The Veiled One”), a Palestinian extremist leader she has recently interviewed; in return it offers her the scoop of a lifetime.

Against a backdrop of escalating violence between Israelis and Palestinians, Eva follows up the cryptic letter while Khalifa and Arieh slowly uncover the unpleasant truth about Jan Weiss. Their investigations intertwine as they all get further in to the web of duplicity and intrigue that has at its center an ancient artifact of such potent symbolism that it could plunge the Middle East into an all-out war.

The Labyrinth of Osiris (Yusuf Khalifa #3)
Detective Arieh-Ben Roi of the Jerusalem police is tasked with the investigation into the death of a well-known Israeli journalist, Rivka Kleinberg, who is found brutally murdered in a cathedral in Jerusalem. Known for her fearless exposés, Kleinberg had made many high-powered enemies, including international corporations, the Israeli government, and the Russian Mafia. Looking for leads, Ben-Roi begins researching which stories Kleinberg was working on before she died, and finds a connection to Egypt which confuses him.

At a stumbling block, Ben-Roi phones up his old friend, Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor Police, and asks him if he will help him investigate the case. Khalifa is happy to help, and begins looking into another story that Kleinberg was researching just before her murder: the mysterious death of a British Egyptologist in the 1930s. This Egyptologist was said to have uncovered a giant labyrinth-like gold mine of incredible riches written about in the works of Herodotus. But what connection could this gold mine have with Kleinberg’s murder?

With a plot that moves from Israel to Egypt to Vancouver to Romania, The Labyrinth of Osiris is an intelligent, gripping novel from an internationally acclaimed master of thriller writing.