Book Title: A Taste of Evil
Series: The Hani’s Daughter Mysteries
Author Name: N.L. Holmes
Publication Date: October 30, 2025
Publisher: WayBack Press
Pages: 247
Genre: Historical Cozy Mystery
Any Triggers: Incest is passingly mentioned
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Book Title and Author Name:
A Taste of Evil
by N.L. Holmes
Blurb:
In Tutankhamen’s Egypt, the vizier’s head cook dies suspiciously, and it looks like murder to Neferet and Bener-ib. Only, who would want to kill a cook, a man admired by all?
Perhaps he has professional rivals or a jealous wife. But she is the longtime cook of Neferet’s family, a dear retainer above reproach. Was her husband the good man he seemed to be, or did he have the shady past our two sleuths begin to suspect?
They’d better find out soon before the waters of foreign conspiracy rise around Neferet and her diplomat father. If they can’t find the killer, it could mean war with Egypt’s enemy, Kheta — and someone else could die. Maybe one of our nosy sleuths…
Excerpt 4:
The young women passed through the long rows of vaulted magazines housing cargo that traveled upriver or downriver to the southern capital. Although she had never entered any of the warehouses, Neferet imagined piles of ivory tusks and ostrich plumes from Ta-nehesy stacked inside. In a battered little block just within the commercial district, a few scruffy houses still stood in a cloud of dust and noise engendered by the endless donkey trains and lines of burden-bearing stevedores that trudged in and out of the storehouses.
The three women stumped up to the gate of a tumbledown adobe cube whose door, screened by a fly mat hanging askew, stood open.
“Hello,Wenet? It’s Neferet and Bener-ib,” Neferet called. “Do you have a minute?”
The herbalist appeared on the doorsill. There was nothing she looked less like than the flower her name suggested—a tall, rawboned woman stooped with age, with a bristly crop of hairs sprouting from her bony chin. She peered out at her visitors with the intensity of the nearsighted, then her expression brightened. “Mut, the mother of us all! It’s me doctor girls, hee-hee! Surely you ain’t run out of herbs already. What can I get for ye?”
“No, our herbs are holding up, thanks. We wanted to know if you do spell casting.”
Wenet looked modestly at her dirty nails. “Why, I been known to cast a powerful one or two in me day, me lady. Whatcha need? Love charm, hee-hee?” She stepped back, and the three pushed into the close salon. The air was heavy with dust, perspiration, and the musky smell of drying aromatics, which hung from the low ceiling beams so densely one had to duck to walk.
“We need a stopping curse. Three men are fleeing downriver in a yacht, and my father needs to catch them. Can you do that?”
“Nothin’ simpler. I’ll need you ladies to write their names.”
Wenet hobbled off into the depths of her inverted garden, the drying bouquets swinging wildly as her gray head struck one after another. A moment later, she returned with a bowl that looked as if she might have just emptied it of her dinner. In her other hand, she carried a long piece of charcoal. Gesturing for the others to join her, she sat on the floor and began to make marks on the greasy pottery. The process seemed to demand a lot of concentration. The herbalist bent over the bowl, her tongue protruding between her sparse teeth, and murmured incomprehensible words to herself. The three sunets watched, transfixed.
At last, Wenet straightened up. “You write them people’s names on here now, me ladies.” She passed her charcoal to Neferet.
“Oh, what’s his real name? It isn’t Sutarna after all…” The young woman stared at the bowl, suddenly helpless.
“Tupkish,” Bener-ib supplied, and Neferet wrote it out phonetically.
“And the other two are, uh… uh…”
“Tunip-teshub and Muttiwaza.”
Neferet flicked her colleague a grateful look. One could always count on Bener-ib to remember something. Neferet added the names of the servants in her bold, oversized hand and pushed the bowl back to Wenet. The only thing Neferet could recognize among the signs the herbalist had inscribed was a long zigzag line that probably represented the River, broken in the middle by a web of scratches that might signify a net or trap. An upside-down boat, such as a child might draw, floated at the side, surrounded by three blobs that could be heads bobbing in the water. Jagged symbols surrounded them—spears or arrows, perhaps—drawing the attention of the demons to the erstwhile victims. It wasn’t a masterwork, but what really mattered were the prayers.
Mumbling a string of imprecations in a dire voice, Wenet hurled the bowl to the floor, where it shattered noisily, sending shards flying into the shadowy corners of the room. Neferet could almost see the dark storm cloud of the curse gathering in the air, drawing to it all the violence and pain that stalked the earth.
“What do we owe you?” Neferet asked.
“Pay me next time ye get dried herbs. ’Cause I don’t have no wick torches to finish the job, so you’re gonna have to do it. Light three good wax wick torches and let ’em burn down. When the last one goes out, those three men’ll stop cold. Hee-hee! No matter where they is, they won’t be goin’ no further.”
“Brilliant!”Neferet beamed. “You’ve helped the good god himself.”
They bade the old woman goodbye and hustled out into the street. As soon as they were alone, Mut-tuy said, “I wonder if you couldn’t put a curse on the person guilty of Int-ef’s murder so that he had to stop suddenly. Then all you’d have to do to identify him would be to find the person who’d mysteriously frozen.”
Neferet pondered this, picturing someone suddenly toppling over in the street like a fallen statue.
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Author Bio:
N.L. Holmes is the pen name of a professional archaeologist. She has excavated in Greece and in Israel and taught ancient history and humanities at the university level for many years. She has always had a passion for books, and in childhood, she and her cousin used to write stories for fun.
These days she lives in France with her husband, two cats, geese, and chickens, where she gardens, weaves, dances, and plays the violin.
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When Angels Fly 