Havoc

At the Royal Karnak Palace along the banks of the Nile, 81-year-old Maggie Burkhardt has finally found home. After 18 hotels in the last five years of travel, she enjoys the warm community of fellow long-term guests and the flattering solicitude of the Royal Karnak manager, Ahmed. Here, in the faded glory of a once-great hotel, she can grieve the death of her life partner, Peter, and overcome a dangerous compulsion that brought her to Egypt abruptly. Maggie likes to meddle in the lives of other guests, helping to free them from their problems—even if those problems are all in her imagination. Then one day, a young mother, Tess, and her eight-year-old son, Otto, check in, and Maggie senses her “help” is needed. Ingratiating herself with the mother and son, she soon finds out the skinny, bespectacled, gap-toothed Otto is her biggest match yet in the havoc-making department.