Why does Egypt continue to fascinate curious travelers? What hidden chambers might lie beneath the pyramids of Giza? How does the duality of Egyptian mythology influence thriller writing? Join thriller authors J.F. Penn and Luke Richardson for a conversation that weaves together archaeological intrigue, travel insights, and the creative process behind crafting compelling adventures in one of history’s most enigmatic settings.

Luke Richardson is the bestselling author of the Eden Black Archaeological Thrillers and the International Detective Thriller Series.

• Why Egypt continues to capture the imagination: Ancient myths, tombs, and timeless sites


• Modern Cairo and Garbage City


• The Oasis of Siwa


• The Pyramids of Giza, and recent archaeological finds about what might be underneath


• Travel tips for modern Egypt


• Recommended books

You can find Luke at LukeRichardsonAuthor.com and his books on Amazon. You can also find his trip notes and pictures at LukeRichardsonAuthor.com/egypt

If you enjoy thrillers inspired by and set in Egypt, check out The Giza Protocol by Luke Richardson and Ark of Blood by J.F. Penn.

Transcript of the interview

Jo: Hello Travelers. I’m Jo Frances Penn, and today I’m here with Luke Richardson. Hi Luke.

Luke: Hello.

Jo: I’m so excited to talk to you. Just for the listeners, Luke is the bestselling author of the Eden Black Archaeological Thrillers and the International Detective Thriller Series, and today we are talking about Egypt, which inspires locations in several of our books, Luke’s thriller, The Giza Protocol, and also my Ark of Blood.

We share an enthusiasm for action adventure thrillers. Obviously, we both write them and this is a topic we like to geek out on.

What is it about Egypt for you? When did this fascination start and why did you want to go?

Luke: There’s so much about Egypt as a country, isn’t there, that just, it’s so evocative of the stories that we write, you know, there’s so much mysticism and so much magic there and, and it conjures up images from Hercule Poirot on the Nile solving murders to the glamor of Cleopatra, to the ambition of Rameses.

And we are not the first writers to be captivated by this. This has happened from Shakespeare all the way forward through the romantic movements, people have been captivated by the magic of Egypt. But there’s also that mystery to it there. There’s things that people don’t know about Egypt.

What were the pyramids for? How were they built? Of course, people say they’re tombs for the Pharaohs, but it’s far more interesting, I think, to consider some of the other theories about maps and power plants and really imaginative, fun stuff that makes our stories tick.

Jo: Yeah. And it’s funny ’cause I was thinking about this in terms of why did I become obsessed with it?

And you and I both have read a lot of the same books, you mentioned there that so many writers have done Egypt. And then of course I’m a little bit older than you, but Indiana Jones obviously and yet we still want to go and see it ourselves, I guess.

And I remember when I was little, we went to Bristol Museum and there was a mummy there and we actually went back quite recently and it was a pretty crap mummy, to be honest. It was pretty bad.

But as an 8-year-old, it made me think, what the hell? Who are these people? How is there a dead body here? Do you remember being interested in that macabre side and the Book of the Dead and hieroglyphics?

Luke: Yeah, certainly. I think when I was maybe 12 or 14, The Mummy film, the first one, I think it, maybe it’s 1998 or 99 or something like this came out, and the whole thing about the mummification process, cutting the tongue out and pulling the brain out through the nose and all this grim stuff that just the kids just go wild for that.

You’ve got a very sort of sick sense of humor, haven’t you, when you are of that age, and I remember that being fascinating as well. For sure.

Jo: Yeah, and I had these hieroglyphic like activity books where I would try and draw the hieroglyphics and I, I really, I really did think I was gonna be like an archeologist, but then of course I went myself in the, I guess, more than a decade ago now.

<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_3345"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-3345">Thriller author Luke Richardson in Luxor, Egypt</figcaption></figure>

Tell us about your modern day trip.

Luke: Yeah, so we went in 2000 and I have to remember now, 2003 in January, 2003, and I’d written the first draft of the book, I did it a bit backwards on this. I had written the book and I wanted to go to check if I got it right, and then it was with my editor at the time or my first group of readers.

And then I took it back and then made all the changes about, no, it actually takes this length of time to walk from here to here or do this thing or that thing and, and sort of jiggled things around after going on the trip. But I knew for me it was really important. I was writing this book. I wanted it to be right. I wanted it to feel right. And for me, making that trip and I was fortunate enough to have the resources and have the time to be able to do that and incorporate that into my writing.

Jo: Was it 2003, did you mean 2013?

Luke: I meant 2023. Sorry, I’m getting completely confused. It was like two, three years ago!

Jo: I was gonna say, how old were you?!

Luke: It was 2 or 3 years ago, yeah.

Jo: This is interesting because I went in, it must have been 2005, and one of the interesting things that we’re both obviously interested in is the pyramids. The Pyramids of Giza and when I went, there was still a really big distance between Cairo and the pyramids, but I imagine when you went, it was actually really close.

<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_1096"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-1096">Thriller author JFPenn in front of the pyramids of Giza, 2004</figcaption></figure>

So tell us about that specific trip.

Luke: Yeah, it’s, it’s Cairo, just sprawled. It’s an incredibly vast city that’s so noisy and polluted, and busy. I love places like that too, because it’s fun and it’s vibrant and there’s great markets and mosques and monasteries and temples.

It’s a real sort of fusion of this African, Asian, with the European elements in there as well. It’s a really interesting city. And that’s featured in the book as well. Actually, I based part of it in this place called Manshiyat Nasser, which is the Garbage City they call it.

And it’s become a little bit of an alternative tourist attraction. It’s on the hill or one of the hills in, in Cairo. And on the top of the hill there’s a monastery carved out of the rock. And you go inside and it’s this giant cave that seats about 600 people in this auditorium. And then you walk down the hill and you walk through the borough of the city where the people sort out the rubbish, they recycle Cairo’s rubbish.

And on the ground floor of all these buildings, you’ve got people there sorting the the plastic forks and spoons into different trays and milk. Bottles from other bottles and glass for things to other things. And people coming in with donkeys and trucks laid them with this rubbish. And the thing that I loved about that is you walk through this place, and this is modern Egypt, right?

This is the way life is in lots of places around the world. You walk through this place and there are people living this sort of simple life, doing the job that they do, but yet there are still hair salons and nail bars and tea shops and restaurants and all the stuff that we have in our towns is there too, just in a different way, you know?

And I absolutely love that. It makes you think about your own existence. It helps you reflect on, I think, on some of the things that we hold important in our lives.

Jo: And well, and in fact, even thinking about the ancient Egypt that’s inspired our modern thrillers as well, is that they have the same thing, you know, hair salons, and the like.

I remember being fascinated by the little Egyptian glass jars that still you can find in the museums, and they were full of perfumes and all that kind of thing. That was just fascinating to me.

And I was just thinking also, what’s different be