Strong heroines, complex mysteries, living history, a touch of romance, and connections to the ancient world which are critical to the plot… what could be better?
About a year and a half ago, I
started reading Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody mystery series
and was completely blown away. Using a
writing style that parodied H. Rider Haggard and other adventurefiction of the eighteen
hundreds, Peters penned a series that centers on the strong-minded, recklessly
brave Amelia Peabody. In Crocodile on
the Sandbank, set in 1884, Amelia travels to Egypt after inheriting a small
fortune. She quickly acquires a
beautiful companion with a mysterious past, and just as quickly adds herself to
the excavation team of the ever-irascible archaeologist Radcliffe Emerson. When a mysterious man dressed as an ancient mummy
scares away the excavation workers, and even attempts to kill the excavation
team, it is Amelia to the rescue!
Over the course of the series,
Amelia and her new husband excavate many different parts of Egypt, become
intimately familiar with the (real) Egyptian archaeologists of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, visit Palestine and Kush, grow their
family, battle antiquity thieves and foreign spies, and solve numerous
mysteries.
Elizabeth Peters was herself an
Egyptologist, and her books are full of details of real archaeological
discoveries, ancient tales and poems, and an accurate depiction of the
turn-of-the-century understanding of ancient Egyptian history.
My favorite things about this
series: I love Amelia’s voice; I love
learning about the history of Egyptian archaeology; and I love Amelia’s
relationship with her husband. This may
be one of the best-written marriages I’ve ever encountered.
Series rating: I would give most of the books in this series
to a teenager, but not quite all. The
Last Camel Died at Noon contains some (accurate) re-enactments of ancient
Egyptian rituals which I could have done without. Some later books have a few scenes between
Amelia’s son and his love interest which might not be suitable for teens.
Quick quote: (Amelia and her new
companion Evelyn visit the Museum of Antiquities in Boulaq, where they meet the
Emerson brothers for the first time.)
We
had penetrated into a back room filled with objects that seemed to be leftovers
from the more impressive exhibits in the front halls of the museum—vases, bead
necklaces, little carved ushebti figures, flung helter-skelter onto shelves and
into cases. There were several other
people in the room. I paid them little
heed; in mountain indignation, I went on, “They might at least dust! Look at this!”
And, picking up a blue-green statuette from a shelf, I rubbed
it with my handkerchief and showed Evelyn the dirty smudge that resulted.
A howl—a veritable animal howl—shook the quiet of the
room. Beofre I could collect myself to
search for its source, a whirlwind descended upon me. A sniewy, sun-bronzed hand snatched the
statuette from me. A voice boomed in my
ear.
“Madam! Do me the
favor of leaving those priceless relics alone!
It is bad enough to see that incompetent ass, Maspero, jumble them about;
will you complete his idiocy by destroying the fragments he has left?”
Evelyn had retreated.
I stood alone. Gathering my
dignity, I turned to face my attacker. …
“Sir,” I said, looking him up and down. “I do not know you—“
“But I know you, madam!
I have met your kind too often—the rampageous British female at her
clumsiest and most arrogant. … No spot on earth is safe from you!”
He had to pause for breath at this point, which gave me
the opportunity I had been waiting for.
“And you, sir, are te lordly British male at his loudest
and most bad-mannered. If the English
gentlewoman is covering the earth, it is in hope of counteracting some of the
mischief her lord and master has perpetrated. …”
My adversary was maddened, as I had hoped he would
be. Little flecks of foam appeared on
the blackness of his beard. His
subsequent comments were incomprehensible, but several fragile objects vibrated
dangerously on the shelves.
Much more recently, on the
recommendation of a friend, I started reading Laurie R. King’s Russell
and Holmes mystery series. The
series begins shortly after World War One, and is still growing. In The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, the
highly-observant and scholarly teenager Mary Russell meets the semi-retired
detective Sherlock Holmes. A Jewess,
Russell studies Hebrew Bible and Rabbinics at Oxford when she isn’t solving cases
with the middle-aged Holmes. In only the
first book of the series, Russell and Holmes catch spies, thieves, kidnappers,
and a master criminal with a long-time grudge against Holmes.
In later books in the series,
Russell and Holmes travel to Palestine, solve a murder sparked by a
New-Testament era manuscript, return to Baskerville Hall, and more.
My favorite things about this
series: the Hebrew-related jokes, the tone-perfect voices of characters from
the Conan Doyle stories, and Mary Russell’s intelligent stubbornness.
Series rating: Once again, most
of the books in this series are suitable for a teenager, but not all. A Monstrous Regiment of Women has some
very odd undercurrents, and involves some unusual biblical exegesis. I’ve only read the first five books in the
series, so I can’t say anything about the later stories.
Amelia Peabody Mysteries (in
internal chronological order)
Crocodile on the Sandbank
The Curse of the Pharoahs
The Mummy Case
Lion in the Valley
Deeds of the Disturber
The Last Camel Died at Noon
The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog
The Hippopotamus Pool
Seeing a Large Cat
The Ape Who Guards the Balance
Guardian of the Horizon
A River in the Sky
The Falcon at the Portal
The Painted Queen (to be published)
He Shall Thunder in the Sky
Lord of the Silent
The Golden One
Children of the Storm
The Serpent on the Crown
Tomb of the Golden Bird
Russell and Holmes Mysteries through 2016 (in internal
chronological order)
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice
Beekeeping for Beginners (novella, published with Garment of Shadows)
O Jerusalem
A Monstrous Regiment of Women
A Letter of Mary
The Moor
Justice Hall
The Game
Dreaming Spies
Locked Rooms
The Language of Bees
The God of the Hive
Pirate King
Garment of Shadows
