Fiction Review: Amelia Peabody

An Englishwoman in Egypt: Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody novels July 10, 4:33 PM In my previous review, I briefly mentioned the Amelia Peabody detective novels, a marvelous series of mysteries that certainly deserve more than a one-line accolade. Written by acclaimed American novelist Elizabeth Peters, the eighteen books in the Amelia Peabody series describe the life of their title character, her family, and their friends. Although the early books occasionaly skip a few years in the saga of Amelia's life, each book usually describes one archaeological season in nineteenth- or twentieth-century Egypt, where Amelia and her husband Emerson excavate tombs, usually in the well-known Valley of Kings. Elizabeth Peters' PhD in Egyptology is evident from the knowledge she brings to descriptions of tombs and artifacts, so that the books are both interesting and informative.

I began the series in media res, with The Last Camel Died at Noon, the sixth book in the series, when the Emersons' precocious son Ramses is already of age and in which the family find themselves stranded and trapped first in the desert and then in a primitive Egyptian society significantly isolated from their comfortable nineteenth-century world. I would not recommend this book to first-time readers of the Peabody sagas, as the sudden explosion of characters and the sight fantastical tilt of this novel are a little extraordinary for Peters' work. Instead, begin at the beginning, The Crocodile on the Sandbank, or any of the novels immediately following (Ramses as a small child is infinitely entertaining).