Product Description

Diana O'Hehir returns in the new novel featuring Carla Day and her elderly father, an Egyptologist suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

Dr. Day was once famous for the ancient coffin lid he discovered, and he and Carla are at the museum that houses it when someone falls to the floor, choking. Dr. Day rushes to pry off the victim's tie. But instead of praise, Day faces charges of murder by strangulation and is accused of faking Alzheimer's. The police take him into custody, only to learn that the museum-goer isn't dead, but comatose.

It has been Carla's father's experience that the dead (and nearly-dead) do not hop out of bed. But once the nurse turns her back, the patient vanishes. Now, when someone refers to the disappearance-or to a subsequent murder-Carla's father asks to visit the coffin. Are these ramblings from a faulty memory? Or is there a connection between a millennia-old Egyptian death-and a present-day California one?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1918898 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
A well-crafted plot and an engaging cast of characters headed by smart, plucky Carla Day and her gentle, 86-year-old Egyptologist father, who suffers from Alzheimer's, lift O'Hehir's refreshing sequel to 2005's Murder Never Forgets. When Carla and her father visit Northern California's Egypt Regained Museum, where an ancient coffin lid he discovered is displayed, Dr. Day's concern for a man collapsed on the floor lands him briefly in jail as a murder suspect. The victim, who was just in a coma, later wakes up at the hospital and abruptly disappears—only to turn up dead with an ankh in his mouth. While the intermittently confused Dr. Day stubbornly insists on revisiting the coffin lid, Carla launches an investigation that will put both her and her dad in danger. A chilling conclusion will catch many readers by surprise. O'Hehir's first novel, I Wish This War Were Over (1984), was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author
Diana O'Hehir is a poet and novelist who grew up in Berkeley, CA, and now lives in Northern California with her husband. The author of books of poetry and fiction, she has taught at Mills College for 28 years. She has won several prestigious awards, including a grant from the NEA for fiction.

Customer Reviews

Well written mystery, but not a page-turner for me
This mystery is the second (I believe) in a series in which the detective-character, Carla Day, is the daughter of a well-known archeologist (Egyptologist) with early Alzheimer's. Her identity in this book is more or less that -- one of my concerns with this book (who is she BESIDES her father's daughter and caregiver). Carla has taken a job working at the facility where her father lives (he can't live independently). Nearby is a privately-owned museum centered on Egyptian artifacts, and Carla takes her father there to see a coffin lid he discovered that has changed the field (his great discovery). While there, a man collapses and her father is accused of killing him. Carla, fiercely protective of her father, tries to prove he was not responsible. Carla's father is invited to live as a visiting scholar at the museum (attached to the mansion of the museum-owner), and Carla accompanies him. There are various deaths that follow, and a mystery involving something that happened at a dig in Egypt many years ago.

All in all, this book was well-plotted. I found the writing style a bit awkward at parts -- not badly written, but requiring more concentration than I usually give to mysteries. But the big problem for me was that I was not as engaged by the book as I like to be if I am to give a book five stars. I enjoyed the book and read it in a few days, but this book did not keep me up until 2 in the morning reading it -- which for some readers, may be a good thing! Otherwise, an enjoyable read.

An Alzheimers hero -- what a concept!
There are two heroes in this mystery: a gentlemanly scholar (his expertise is ancient Egypt) who happens to have Alzheimers, and his feisty not so ladylike daughter. They make a terrific -- and humorous -- pair. He's in danger, but doesn't exactly know it. She does know it, and is trying to save him. I liked the author's first book (Murder Never Forgets) in this series just as much. The action all takes place in California, which in a way becomes a character, too.

terrific Egyptology mystery
In Northern California, Carla Day takes her octogenarian father Edward, a renowned Egyptologist suffering from Alzheimer's father to see his greatest find, an ancient coffin lid housed at Egypt Regained Museum. While there, a man collapses to the floor; Edward rushes to his aid starting with loosening the victim's tie. However, security yanks him away as they assume he is choking the man to death. Local police arrest Edward charging him with strangulation, but the man lives lying in a coma in a nearby hospital.

At the hospital, the comatose man apparently got up and left. Not long after he vanishes, he reappears as a corpse with an ankh in his mouth. Edward keeps arguing that they came here to see his coffin lid though he has visited it several times while Carla tries to uncover the truth about the dead man, not realizing how much danger she and her father are in from an unknown assailant who prefers to remain anonymous.

The sequel to MURDER NEVER FORGETS plays out on two levels as readers obtain a first hand look at the ravages of Alzheimer's on the victim and his daughter inside a cleverly design whodunit. The story line is fast-paced from the moment Dr. Day intervenes until the final unnerving shocking final confrontation. Diana O'Hehir provides readers with a terrific Egyptology mystery combined with a strong personal look at senior health care issues.

Harriet Klausner