BOOK REVIEWS

Amelia Peabody is thirty-two years old, not unattractive (although she herself does not realize this), and unmarried. Her life consisted of living in a small English village, looking after her father and learning languages. (''I have an aptitude for languages, dead and alive. Papa preferred his languages dead.'')

After the death of her father (from natural causes) Amelia finds herself the possessor of a large fortune, and decides to travel the world - starting with Egypt. She engages a companion (I did not do this for the sake of propriety. Oppressed as my sex is in this supposedly enlightened decade of 1880, a woman of my age and station in life can travel abroad alone without offending any but the overly prudish).

On the first stage of her journey - a stop over in Rome, Italy, her companion becomes ill with the typhoid and must be sent home. When Amelia sees Evelyn Barton-Forbes faint in the Forum, she befriends the girl. Evelyn's tale is a sad one - she lived with her wealthy grandfather in England but was seduced away by a handsome Italian. Her grandfather has disowned her and her Italian lover abandoned her. Amelia informs Evelyn that she will accompany her to Egypt. (''And you are not repelled by my ruined character?'' ''I do not consider that it is ruined. Indeed, the experience has probably strengthened your character.'')

the pyramids at Gizeh

While visiting the museum of Boulaq, Amelia and Evelyn meet two Egyptologists - Radcliffe Emerson and his brother Walter. The meeting is not a propitious one - Radcliffe Emerson is infuriated by Amelia's handling of the antiquities, but Walter and Evelyn seem quite smitten. Evelyn, however, will not pursue her attraction - she believes herself to be a fallen woman, and when her cousin Lucas arrives to tell her of her Uncle's death, she vows to vote herself to good works.

Amelia hires a dahabeeyah (a luxurious houseboat that plies tourists up and down the Nile River) and begins a journey toward El Amarnah - a site of the pyramid of the 'heretic' Pharoah Khuenaten (Akhenaten) - the pharoah who attempted to change the religeon of Egypt into monotheism. Not so coincidentally, it is the site where Radcliffe and Walter Emerson are carrying on their excavations (for Amelia intends Walter for Evelyn).

Akhenaten

Amelia and her companions are too modern to believe in mummies - they know a human agency at work. But what - or who - does that agency want, and why?

Like Dorothy Sayer's A Busman's Holiday, this is a love story with detective interruptions. It is also a rollicking goof adventure story - the first of sixteen in the chronicles of Amelia Peabody and Radcliffe Emerson.

Elizabeth Peters

Barbara Mertz, better known as either Barbara Michaels or Elizabeth Peters (or MPM to the knowledgeable fan) got her doctorate in Eyptology in 1952, when she was 23. But there was no work for her to be had, thanks to the post WWII reaction against women in the workplace. Mertz married and had children. Her first published works were non-fiction - two books about Egyptology which were still in print up until very recently.

In 1968, her first romantic suspense novel, The Master of Blacktower was published under the pseudonym Barbara Michaels. She really didn't hit her stride until the 1970s, when she created her three main series leads - Jacqueline Grant in The Seventh Sinner (1972), Vicky Bliss in Borrower of the Night (1973), and Amelia Peabody in The Crocodile on the Sandbank (1975). However, while MPM continued with the adventures of Jaqueline and Vicky Bliss, she did not give us a sequel to Crocodile until nine years later, when Curse of the Pharaohs was published in 1984. Now the chronicle of the Emersons has taken center stage, and is one of the most popular of mystery series.

Amelia Peabody owes a great deal to Agatha Christie. The opening of Crocodile is reminiscent of the opening of Christie's The Man in the Brown Suit (1923). Christie's heroine, Anne, lives in a small English village and takes care of her father, an absent-minded professor type. When he dies she is left penniless, but it gives her an opportunity to go to London. From there her adventures take her to Africa rather than Egypt, but the principal is the same!

Amelia Peabody and Radcliffe Emerson are excavating at the site of Tell Amarnah - home of the heretic pharoah Ahkenaten. Agatha Christie, who married the archeologist Max Mallowan and spent many seasons in Egypt (as well as writing several mysteries based there), wrote an unproduced play based on the story of Ahkenaten.

We will review the remaining books in the Amelia Peabody series in future issues. We suggest that anyone interested in reading these books read them in chronological order. Even if one detests Ramses (the son of Amelia and Emerson), the first three books in the series are delightful and worth the read. Peters carries the story of the Emerson's and their extended family all the way up through the end of World War One, interweaving fact and fantasy with a deft touch. Even if one detests Ramses (has it been made clear that I detest Ramses?) Amelia and Emerson are always available to produce a smile or the white knuckles of suspense.

Mysterious Press edition, 1984. Illustration by Manny Morales

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http://www.mpmbooks.com/MPM Books (also known as Another Shirt Ruined)