Inheritance of Honor

After their adventures with murder in The Borgia Blade and A Little Pinch of Death, retired professor Simon Fraser and his young assistant, Tom McElrath, are sent on a treasure hunt to find the meaning of the seven keys left behind by the murdered Sara Seldon.

The keys arrived one day in a package along with a note from Sara that she probably would be murdered, and challenging the astute professor to find her killer. Sara died that very night, brought down by the blunt end of a shingle hatchet.

As usual, young Tom's brother-in-law, Lieutenant Robert Campbell of the Ben Nevis Homicide Division, is sorely tried by the secretive nature of good friend Simon, who never tells all he knows until he's certain of a satisfactory conclusion.

Thanks to membership in the Detective Club, the awe-inspiring Greek fortune-teller and seer, Millicent Zacharias, takes a formidable hand in the subsequent chase.

She sees things in the Eye of Imhotep that "ought not be seen," all of which confounds the pragmatic Lieutenant and his logical friend Prentice Dodd, to the continuing amusement of the more open-minded professor.