From the Limbo of the Wings

They have been brought from the Limbo of the Wings with masks and gloves of gold --Jean Cocteau.The mask and golden coffin of the boy king, Tutankhamun, became the wonder of the age when his tomb was discovered by Howard Carter in 1922. For some, though, such treasures became at once an obsession and a temptation. The love rivalry of two American women, Esther and Ariana, one a Jewess and the other an Arab, created an unscrupulous rivalry without remorse. The result was an audacious raid to extract the treasures directly from inside the Cairo Museum. The events leading up to this led to intrigue, double-dealing, murder, spies, and a pursuit across North Africa, Eastern and Western Europe, the North Sea and the North York Moors of England. Unfortunately it was complicated by the assassination of the Egyptian president, Anwar el Sadat, causing suspicion to fall upon their investigators. The women's rivalry, laced by a melange of passion and hatred, brings about a tense climax in the bowels of an ancient church crypt risking embarrassment to two international powers, especially when an "instinctive copper" from Cairo wouldn't obey orders