The Painted Queen

The Painted Queen by Elizabeth Peters
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

You probably know this already, but it’s worth stating again. When Elizabeth Peters died before completing The Painted Queen, her family asked author Joan Hess to finish it. Hess was not just a fan but her friend, and must have recognized that this would be a thankless task—yet she gave three years of her life to ensure its completion.
The result has divided Amelia Peabody fans, with a good proportion of them questioning Hess’s portrayal of Amelia’s character. One example that pops up quite regularly is her knowledge of hypnotism. Here’s the thing. As readers, we seem to have a proprietorial regard for characters. They are ours. We know them better than anyone. Woe betide any author—especially an interloper—who gets them wrong. I personally felt that the hypnotism was bang on character, and provided a spark of comedy that was lacking elsewhere. I also loved the contrivance of the five brothers out for revenge.
For me, the novel’s biggest flaw was its interminable planning sessions. The family in its various permutations sits around talking about what they intend to do next…rather than getting on and doing it. Much of the book is needlessly padded out this way, and the resulting dialogue feels forced and stilted. Regarding the plot, I’m still unsure to what purpose one of the archaeologists was being drugged, and the tension between Nefret and Ramses, which we’re teased with throughout (even at the very end), is never explained (or, if it is, it’s so brief that I missed it). These issues should have been ironed out in the editorial stages. Had they been, this would have been a much better book.
It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that this was a labour of love written primarily to bring her friend’s final novel to fruition, and I applaud her for doing so.

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The Curse of the Pharaohs

The Curse of the Pharaohs by Elizabeth Peters
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I LOVED this. Elizabeth Peters is SO good. My Crimes & Thrillers group read the first in the series some time ago and enjoyed it so much that, now we have separated ourselves from the library which spawned the group and are now obliged to suggest our own titles, I thought we would probably enjoy reading the second one Although I’m only coming to this series (begun in the 1980s) now (2016), the writing is timeless.
As cosies go, Amelia Peabody’s is an not just an exceptional narrative voice, it’s seminal. I was laughing out loud at the antics her infant son Ramses gets up to as the novel begins. I never quite managed to work out how old he is when he unearths the bone from the compost heap (I’m guessing older than two but not yet three, at which point he has begun to write—not just print—but WRITE).
‘I fink,’ he said, ‘it is a femuw. A femuw of a winocewos.’
‘There are no rhinoceroses in England,’ I pointed out.
‘A a-stinct winocewos,’ said Ramses.
Her eye for detail is as is as extraordinary as her eye for humour.
A murder ensues. Motives abound. At some point Peters claims that, unlike in reality, writers of sensational detective fiction can suit the facts to how they themselves would like them to be. If I were writing this book, I would have a very different murderer—even though the culprit turned out to be exactly who I wanted them to be.
Fantastic stuff. A pity then that libraries seem to rid themselves of older books in order to accommodate new ones, especially when said books are clearly classics.
But that’s just my own humble opinion…what do you think? Do let me know!

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Crocodile on the Sandbank

Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Here’s an early photo of one of this book’s main characters, the archaeologist Radcliffe Emerson. Well, no…you’re right; it’s actually an early photo of the archaeologist Flinders Petrie. But I think I’ve got a point, don’t you? If you’re left in any doubt, take a look at the much later photograph at the bottom of this post. Isn’t that Emerson striding off over the sands, as he so often does throughout this novel? And could that possibly be his brother Walter following behind?
Amelia Peabody makes a fantastic protagonist. She’s comically forthright to a fault, yet retains sufficiently self-awareness to be able to admit to these flaws on occasion.
Elizabeth Peters conjures up characters that are as delightful as they are believable, and her knowledge of Egyptology—and of the period when this is set—is vast. It’s all the more remarkable, therefore, that she uses it to pepper up the story without ever allowing it to intrude.
But that’s just my own humble opinion…what do you think? Do let me know! Read for the Crime & Thrillers reading group that I attend at Canada Water Library, and also for my 2015 Goodreads reading challenge. Thank you to Alice King (the reading group’s organizer) for introducing me to this wonderful, wonderful series. I shall in time be reading more.



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