The Deceit

Acknowledgements

I have read many books for the purposes of researching this novel. My thanks therefore go out to all the authors: Robert Sattin, Jan Assmann, Nicholas Reeves, Georg Dehn, Andrew Smith, Erik Hornung, D M Murdock, Burton J Bogitsh, Thomas Cheng, Paul Newman, Lawrence Suttin, Claude Combes, Richard Wilkinson and Carl Zimmer. I must thank Glenys Roberts for allowing me to use her excellent essay on Crowley, and the estate of John Heath-Stubbs for allowing me to quote his verse about West Penwith; a particular debt of gratitude is owed to Marvin Meyer and Richard Smith for their marvellous and mind-blowing Ancient Christian Magic, Coptic Texts of Ritual Power.

Thanks are also due to my tireless agent Eugenie Furniss, and my erudite and indispensable editor Jane Johnson.

Mostly, I want to thank the many people of Egypt — Muslim and Christian, Arabs and Nubians — who have shown me so many corners of that fascinating country, and for being so hospitable every time I came visiting — even when Egypt was in violent political turmoil.

I am grateful to Al-Tayyeb Hassan, who drove me to the remotest parts of Middle Egypt. I am also grateful to Ethar Shalaby, who showed me around the home of the Zabaleen in Moqqatam, Cairo. Finally, I am enormously indebted to the Zabaleen themselves for allowing me a glimpse of their lives.

This book is dedicated to the nuns of the fourth-century Coptic monastery of St Tawdros, near the Valley of the Queens, Luxor.