Five years ago, 81-year-old Maggie Burkhardt fled her native Wisconsin in suspicious circumstances. She has come to rest somewhere she can imagine staying forever: the Royal Karnak Hotel in Luxor, Egypt. Maggie is no sweet little old lady.

She has a nasty, nosy habit: she spies on her fellow guests and manipulates situations to 'liberate' them from what she sees as unhappy relationships. Wrongly assuming eight-year-old Otto and his well-meaning mother will be easy targets, she is soon locked in a death-spiral with her young prey. Has she finally met her match in a child one-tenth her age?