The Stolen Queen

In this alluring outing from Davis (The Spectacular), two women team up to find an artifact that’s gone missing from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s 1978 and curator Charlotte Cross, who specializes in Egyptian antiquities, has spent the past three years working to prove female pharaoh Hathorkare was not “universally reviled,” and that her visage was not damaged directly after her death, as conventionally believed, but decades later. Charlotte must visit Egypt to prove her thesis, a trip she’s avoided because of devastating memories from when she studied abroad there in the 1930s. In a parallel narrative, 19-year-old housekeeper Annie Jenkins dreams of becoming a fashion designer. When she lands a job as the assistant to Met Gala organizer Diana Vreeland, she thinks she’s hit the jackpot. But the night of the gala, one of the museum’s most famous Egyptian pieces disappears, and Charlotte and Annie join forces to track it down. Their search leads them to Egypt, where Charlotte will finally face her past—if she and Annie aren’t killed first. The action-packed novel brims with Davis’s customary meticulous research and adds insight to debates over whether artifacts should remain in their country of origin. There’s plenty of substance to this rousing adventure. Agent: Stefanie Lieberman, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Jan.)