"Death to him who violates this sacred seal, death from the guardian jackal Anubis, death . . ." Kate Gresham isn't the kind of person to believe in Ancient Egyptian curses. That sort of thing is for Hollywood B-movies. It's not for "Exploring the Egyptian World," the state-of-the-art museum exhibit that Kate, a developer in way over her head, hopes will breathe new life into the stodgy Chicago Institute of Natural History. But when a cantankerous curator winds up dead, Kate wonders if she might actually be paying the price for disturbing tombs better left sealed. No one liked Dr. Franklin Deverrie, the exhibit's lead curator and a washed up academic with a penchant for snooping through his colleagues' offices. In fact, they hated him. But who hated the man enough to push him through an atrium window, dashing his body on the museum's marble floors? As if Kate didn't have enough to worry about, her exhibit is behind schedule and over budget. And that's before an old flame takes a job at the Institute, reawakening feelings she thought were long buried. Will Exploring the Egyptian World become the blockbuster attraction the museum desperately needs, and will Kate unmask Deverrie's killer before it's too late? Or will she wind up as dead as one of the mummies on display?