The prospects for the 1907 archaeological season in Egypt seem fairly dull to Amelia Peabody. Her adored husband, Professor Radcliff Emerson, has been ignominiously demoted to examining only the most boring tombs in the Valley of the Kings, but they are determined to make the most of a bad situation. This year, however, the legendary land of the pharaohs will yield more than priceless artifacts, for the desert guards even deeper mysteries that are wrapped in greed - and sealed in murder.

Malice Domestic distinguishes the personal and private aspects of crime from the public and impersonal. Our murderers don't kill for the fun of it (serial killers) or for a misguided ideal (assassins and terrorists) or for pay (hired hit men). They only do in people they know and love (or hate).

Amelia and Emerson leave the calm of Victorian England in search of an estranged father's son and a lost kingdom buried deep in Sudan.

The annual Historical Romance Writers of the World convention in New York City is calling to Jacqueline Kirby, a Nebraska librarian who desperately desires some excitement. But all is not love and kisses at this august gathering of starry-eyed eccentrics and sentimental scribes. As far as Jacqueline is concerned, the sudden "natural" death of a gossip columnist seems anything but.

Who stole one of Egypt's most priceless treasures? That is the question that haunts the authorities after a distinguished British gentleman with an upper-crust accent cons his way past a security guard and escapes into the desert carrying a world-famous, one-of-a-kind historic relic. But the Egyptian authorities and Interpol believe they know the identity of the culprit.

The opportunity to spend some time at an archaeological dig on an Arizona ranch was everything a young graduate student trying to prove herself might want. And it was...until another guest suffered an accident, then disappeared. Suddenly, the guests were eyeing each other with fear and suspicion.

She may be a best-selling author, but ex-librarian Jacqueline Kirby's views on the publishing biz aren't fit to print. In fact, she's thinking of trading celebrity for serenity and a house far away from fiendish editors and demented fans, when her agent whispers the only words that could ever make her stay: Naked in the Ice.

Surely Aunt Ida couldn't really have meant it what she said: "I only hope I will be taken before my mind fails. Fairies in the woods, indeed!" But when Laurie and her brother Doug visit her at Idlewood, they discover that Aunt Ida may indeed have something to fear in the woods.

This issue contains nine articles: "So Long Joe", by Roger Angell; "The Fires", by Dana Goodyear; "Condi's Party Starter", by Jesse Lichtenstein; "Future Reading", by Anthony Grafton; "The Dog", by Roddy Doyle; "Running on Fumes", by Elizabeth Kolbert; "All Souls", by Peter Schjeldahl; "The Endless Scroll", by Alex Ross; and "Drug Warriors", by David Denby.

This month, we'll hear summaries of two great business books: Meatball Sundae, by Seth Godin, and The Talent Powered Organization, by Peter Cheese, Robert J. Thomas, and Elizabeth Craig.