Paul Nicholas Sussman (11 July 1966 – 31 May 2012) was an English author, archaeologist and journalist. His novels, most of which have an archaeological theme, were described by The Independent as "the intelligent reader's answer to The Da Vinci Code".
Novels by Paul Sussman:
- The Lost Army of Cambyses (2002)
- The Last Secret of the Temple (2005)
- The Hidden Oasis (2009)
- The Labyrinth of Osiris (2012)
- The Final Testimony of Raphael Ignatius Phoenix (2014)
Tropes appearing in his works:
- Adventure Archaeologist: Flin Brodie in The Hidden Oasis. A professor at the American University in Cairo, he often goes on expeditions to the more remote parts of Egypt.
- Yusuf Khalifa, who features in four of the novels, sometimes reflects that he could have been an archaeologist had he not dropped out of studying ancient history at university — which he did in order to join the police as it offered immediate employment and better job security than the eventual prospect of a job with the Antiquities Service, and he needed to provide for his pregnant wife and widowed mother at the time. Being a police detective certainly leads him to a few adventures in which ancient history figures prominently.
- Ancient Egypt: Tends to feature heavily; although most of the novels are set in modern-day Egypt (and elsewhere in the Middle East), archaeology features heavily, the MacGuffin is usually something from ancient times and (parts of) the prologues tend to take place there.
- Asshole Victim: Abu Nayer, one of several murder victims at the start of The Lost Army of Cambyses, was a drunken wife-beater who owed dozens of people money and dabbled in the illegal trading of antiquities. When Khalifa visits the guy's wife to break the news of his death, her reaction is one of joy.
- As the Good Book Says...: A Koranic version in The Lost Army of Cambyses, in which Khalifa and Saif al-Tha'r briefly quote verses from the Koran at each other.
- Chekhov's Gun: Dymmachus's sword, which figures prominently in the prologue of The Lost Army of Cambyses, plays a key role in the climax.
- Chekhov's Skill: In The Lost Army of Cambyses, two characters have experience of working with certain animals — Tara Mullray is a snake expert at London Zoo, while Yusuf Khalifa worked in a camel yard as a boy. Both characters have to utilise this experience at different points in the plot. Khalifa's knowledge of ancient history also counts, as he's the only one who spots that the tomb is an elaborate fake, because a couple of the shabtis are from a later time period, in addition to which the hieroglyphs are just a little bit too perfect — as discussed earlier, the ancients always made small mistakes.
- Cigar Chomper: Casper Dravic in The Lost Army of Cambyses, who not only enjoys smoking them, he also likes stubbing them out on his victims.
- Dead Guy Junior: Yusuf Khalifa's eldest son, Ali, is named after his dead brother. Who is actually not dead, although he is to all intents and purposes dead to Khalifa thanks to his radicalisation.
- Decoy Protagonist: Daniel Lacage in The Lost Army of Cambyses. Ultimately leads to a Face–Heel Turn.
- The Determinator: Detective Inspector Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor Police.
- Even Evil Has Standards: A few examples.
- Saif al-Tha'r, a hardcore Islamic fundamentalist, does not like the fact that he has to employ a man as unsavoury as Casper Dravic in order to achieve his goals.
- In The Hidden Oasis, Brodie is able to convince the mooks not to kill him on the grounds that he, like them, is a fan of Al Ahly, one of the top football teams in Egypt. They agree to spare his life as a result.
- Football Hooligans: Two of the Big Bad's mooks in The Hidden Oasis provide an Egyptian example of this trope, being die-hard Al Ahly fans. Very much Truth in Television, as most Egyptian football teams have groups of ultras among their supporters note .
- Happily Married: Yusuf and Zenab Khalifa. She has no regrets about marrying a man with less money than the pompous fool her sister married, and they clearly love each other very much. In The Labyrinth of Osiris , their love ultimately proves strong enough to keep them and their family together after the death of their son.
- Homage: The Lost Army of Cambyses is this to Raiders of the Lost Ark — although this story is told (partly) from the perspective of the Marion Ravenwood equivalent, Tara Mullray. Her archaeologist father is dead, and her archaeologist ex-boyfriend Daniel (with whom things ended badly, back in the day) shows up and takes her on a quest involving ancient tombs, snakes, an Egyptian friend of his who has previously worked for him on digs, a sadistic German who tries to torture her and an archaeological dig happening out in the desert aimed at uncovering an ancient mystery (in this case, the fate of the titular army). The climax, though, comes with The Reveal that Daniel — the Indy equivalent — is not the good guy she thought he was. Which is why this story has no Belloq equivalent, as he combines the two.
- MacGuffin: The one in The Last Secret of the Temple is the Temple Menorah; in this universe, the one the Romans took after they destroyed the Second Temple in 70AD was a fake.
- Meaningful Name: Flin Brodie, the archaeologist in The Hidden Oasis, shares his first name with the legendary Real Life archaeologist Flinders Petrie
. Additionally, he shares his surname (albeit differently spelt) with Marcus Brody. - Not Quite Dead: Khalifa's brother Ali in The Lost Army of Cambyses, who is in fact Saif al-Tha'r. Turns out, previous references to him being dead actually meant that he was dead to his younger brother, whose obsession with Saif al-Tha'r is not because he radicalised Ali, but because Ali became him.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Khalifa sometimes reflects on the similarities between police detective work and archaeology.
- Posthumous Character: Quite a few. The Lost Army of Cambyses, for example, begins with four deaths in suspicious circumstances; two of them are shown shortly before their deaths, and one of those does not become part of the story until the final third of the novel.
- Recurring Character: Detective Inspector Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor Police appears in four novels — three times as one of the protagonists, and once as a minor character.
- The Reveal: A couple towards the end of The Lost Army of Cambyses. First, Saif al-Tha'r is revealed to be Khalifa's brother Ali. It had previously been implied that Ali had died years before after being radicalised, but instead he actually became Saif al-Tha'r, the most radical Islamic extremist of them all, and dropped his old identity after the massacre in his home village (which he actually perpetrated). Eagle-eyed readers may well be able to spot a couple of early clues that indicate this. Second, that tomb of a solider who had apparently survived the sandstorm in the prologue was an elaborate fake, which Daniel had constructed at the behest of British and American intelligence as part of the plot to lure Saif al-Tha'r into Egypt, where they can kill him.
- Shout-Out: A story told by Herodotus forms a major element of The Lost Army of Cambyses, in which the location of said lost army has been discovered, and various interested parties will kill to prevent others from finding out.
- Shown Their Work: Sussman, who worked as an archaeologist in Egypt for several years, weaves in plenty of archaeological knowledge and a fair amount of Arabic slang.
- Someone to Remember Him By: Ari Ben-Roi dies at the end of The Labyrinth of Osiris, leaving behind a pregnant girlfriend.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Yusuf Khalifa and Ari Ben-Roi initially display this when ordered to work together — hardly surprising, given that they are (respectively) Egyptian and Israeli. They get better though, eventually becoming Fire-Forged Friends.
- Unreliable Narrator: The title character of The Final Testimony of Raphael Ignatius Phoenix, who has lived for the whole length of the twentieth century and wishes to record his own account of that century before killing himself on 1st January 2000 — his hundredth birthday.
- The World Is Just Awesome: In The Lost Army of Cambyses, Khalifa's travels take him to the coast. He's never seen the sea before, and takes some time out not just to stop and look, but call his wife and tell her how wonderful it looks.
