The Menmenet Series

Book excerpt: Murder, money, mystery, and metaphysics come together in a collection of riveting alternative-history thrillers. The Menmenet mysteries take place in a very different San Francisco colonized by the Egyptian Empire. A city of fog, temples, and mystery, Menmenet and the country of which it is the capital, the Ta'an-Imenty Republic, sit in an uneasy tension with the First Peoples' nations and the United States to the East. They get along well enough with the Aztec Republic to the south, but the Russians from Russkaya Amerika to the north are a constant source of trouble. Shesmu za-Akhen is a celebrity chef in Menmenet. Hutyt-er-Semetyu Cheryl MacIntyre is an emigrant from Boston in the United States trying to make her way in the homicide squad of the Menmenet medjau, the enforcers of ma'at. The trilogy of novels in the Menmenet Series tells their story. The Jackal of Inpu tells the story of how Shesmu and MacIntyre met, a romantic mystery full of murder and misplaced religiosity. In the second novel, The Lion of Bastet, the lovers follow the money amidst Aztec and Russian gangsters and temple priests dead set against them. The novel combines romance, police procedure, and religious conflict in a murder mystery that comes to a stunning conclusion. The third novel, The Bull of Mentju, takes Shesmu and MacIntyre far out of their comfort zones. Shesmu confronts the mystery of his missing father in the high mountains to the east, encountering First Peoples shamans and their gods, while MacIntyre confronts a more prosaic problem: the United States is mounting a secret attempt to take over the small country with genocidal intent. Ancient gods and modern armies clash in this military and political thriller. Enjoy all three novels in this box set of alternate history mysteries.