by Steven Siebert

Steven Siebert, a screenwriter and comic book artist, combines the speed and flair of both crafts in his lively debut thriller, Cleopatra's Needle. He tells the story of a search for an ancient Egyptian cross, or ankh, that has incredible, mythical powers. This particular relic has been split in half somewhere in the distant past. The half that should be at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is stolen from a curator murdered at the foot of an ancient obelisk (Cleopatra's Needle) in Central Park. The other half has been snatched, at least temporarily, from a top Syrian terrorist named Salameh by a female Israeli intelligence agent. Putting the two halves together, Salameh believes, could result in raising the spirit of the Egyptian Pharaoh Osiris--and boost Salameh's plan for world domination.

Siebert has the energy and skill to rise above the possible foolishness of his material and produce a book full of action and adventure. He tosses in ancient legend and high-tech reanimation to explain how the ankh works. 'What I'm saying is, if the idea of the soul is created in an electrochemical mind, after death it is released as pure energy that's given form by the person's own belief system,' says Dan Rawlins, the noted archaeologist involved in the search.

Forget all the obvious jokes about 'Raiders of the Lost Ankh' or 'Ankhs for the Memory,' Cleopatra's Needle is serious business. --Dick Adler