At the start of Murder in Mennefer, our young hero is set to begin a journey south down a river with a friend. That sounds like a classic American tale, calling to mind Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But the journey does not happen, and this story is not an American one. Rather, Mennefer is what we know as Memphis in ancient Egypt, circa 27th century BCE, not the modern-day city in Tennessee. This is an Egypt so ancient that the pyramids have not yet been built. (Oddly enough, Huck and Jim’s original destination was Cairo, Illinois.)
The title Murder in Mennefer may call to mind an Agatha Christie mystery, and though there is a Hercule Poirot-like figure in the book, this is not a mystery in the sense of Death on the Nile. Murder in Mennefer is more of a coming-of-age adventure. There’s even a love interest, the baker’s daughter. Sirois deftly balances these various strands. He is having some fun in this novel aimed at young adults, and he’s inviting us along. I’m on board, and you should be, too, whatever your age. It’s a terrific ride.
Our hero is Imhotep, a pious, skinny, 13-year-old boy. He has endless curiosity. His main interest is studying herbs and healing spells with his teacher. Imhotep dreams of becoming a healer. His father, Kaneferw, whose official title, Master of Public Works, makes him part architect, part builder, and part bureaucrat, wants Imhotep to follow him in the family business. Tragically, just as Imhotep is to set out on his journey down the Nile, Kaneferw is killed in a construction accident. Imhotep initially thinks that he’ll have to take over his father’s workshop, which he does not want to do. But even worse, it turns out that his father has left the family nearly without money. Upon examining his father’s accounts, Imhotep realizes that things don’t seem to add up. He can’t find where the money went. And the commissions for his father’s workshop have been withdrawn.
He gets some help finding a job. Ahmose, a former assistant to Imhotep’s father, arranges for Imhotep to work at a gruesome slaughterhouse. The place is nasty, filthy, malodorous. The work is physically exhausting, and the overseer does not spare the lash, but Imhotep, whose family had been well-positioned before his father’s death, has no other options.
We see that even in these terrible circumstances, Imhotep is a thinker who asks many questions of the world:
Imhotep closed his eyes. Not from modesty but from sheer incredulity at being subject to a workplace composed of piss and excrement, dung and salt and offal. How in the name of the Seven Hathors have I ended up here? It makes no sense! O my father, could you not have been more careful with your finances?
Everything has a pattern, does it not? One only has to learn where to look. The rivers of blood in our bodies, the knots of veins, the sacs and bones, all have their own mysteries, their own immutable laws. I would give much to understand them!
Imhotep’s interest in medicine extends to curiosity about anatomy. He watches his father’s embalmer at work on the body of a young man:
Leaving Sekwaskhet’s heart in place to travel to the West with the body, Merisu excised the lungs flanking it. He deposited them in the fourth and final jar, to be blessed and watched over in the tomb by Hapi, deity of the North, Imhotep knew, so the young man could live again in the Fields of Yalu and accompany the Sun on its daily ride.
This curiosity leads Imhotep to become suspicious about his father’s death and to believe that the missing funds may be part of a deliberate scheme. Eventually, he is able to enlist a powerful ally to try to determine what actually happened. But I don’t want to give too much away of this exciting read.
The classical Roman poet Horace composed a manual, Ars Poetica, which says that a writer ought to combine the instructive with the agreeable. Fictions meant to amuse, Horace says, should hew close to reality. In providing this combination of information and pleasure, Sirois succeeds admirably, as is clear from his depiction of Egyptian funerary practices. Sirois deals out interesting insights into the daily life of a baker and slaughterhouse worker, even that of a stay-at-home mom, with depictions of domestic life: “The dried-grass broom by the door, the pile of broken pottery shards for writing, the fruit ripening on the fig trees.”
James Joyce famously said about Ulysses that if Dublin disappeared, it could be reconstructed from a copy of his novel. Fortunately, Dublin is still here, and while Mennefer is gone, Sirois has succeeded in rebuilding it in our imaginations. I was struck time and again by the intriguing scenes of quotidian life, such as the practice of sleeping on rooftops, the descriptive names of streets, the workings of an abattoir, foods eaten, self-cleansing, the style of ritual prayers. One particularly striking detail is the practice of wearing a scented head cone at a party, which melts as the night progresses.
(An aside: Such depictions, which are artfully woven into a fast-moving plot, call to mind a book by Lionel Casson titled Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt, which describes ancient Egypt’s social hierarchy; professions, such as scribes and engineers; and the crucial role of religion, including the nature of the gods and conventions of belief in the afterlife. Readers who have delighted in Murder in Mennefer may wish to further explore everyday life in ancient Egypt.)
Back to our book at hand: There was an actual, historical Imhotep. He was a “vizier, sage, architect, astrologer, and chief minister to [King] Djoser (reigned 2630–2611 BCE), who was later worshiped as the god of medicine in Egypt and in Greece, where he was identified with the Greek god of medicine, Asclepius.” As an architect, Imhotep seems to have invented the step pyramid we know today. Quite impressive! In basing his main character on this figure, Sirois has created an appealing protagonist who’s a fully realized combination of smarts and flaws. He has acne, and before he takes on physical labor, he’s scrawny, yet he is able to figure his way out of difficult situations. I’m a sucker for the underdog.
To add to the excitement, there’s another death, this one clearly a murder. Through Imhotep’s eyes we see how an ancient Egyptian detective might have worked. Murder in Mennefer ultimately broadens its reach to encompass larger concerns: The kingdom is threatened by a group of southern renegades, the Sons of Atum, who commit terrorist acts, ratcheting up the stakes not only for Imhotep and his family, but the very polity. It all comes to a thrilling climax where Imhotep is put in grave danger.
Murder in Mennefer is, broadly, a coming-of-age story. Imhotep loses his father in the first few pages of the book and must figure out a way to navigate his radically changed circumstances. Such a tale will surely resonate with young adult readers–indeed, readers of any age. Highly recommended.
Would My Pick be Your Pick?
If you're interested in ________, the answer may be "Yes":￭ Murder mysteries
￭ Fast-moving coming-of-age stories
￭ History, especially about ancient Egypt
￭ Young adult fiction appropriate for older adults
￭ Stories about resourceful protagonists put into difficult situations
