Crocodile on the Sandbank (1975)
Amelia Peabody #1
A prim late Victorian spinster, when Amelia Peabody inherits her father's fortune, she shakes off convention to go globetrotting. Along the way, she rescues the sweet-tempered 'fallen' noblewoman Evelyn Barton-Forbes from poverty and suffering in Rome. The pair travel to Egypt, where they fall in with a pair of archaeologist brothers. While handsome, gentle Walter seems poised to break Evelyn's heart as she dreads the effect of revealing her past to him, Amelia meets her match in ferocious, loud-mouthed Emerson. But when an animated mummy starts taking an interest in the women, all that delicious chemistry catches fire and takes off in a mystery-suspense-gothic spoof that is pure delight.
It's hard to be dispassionate about the Peabody mysteries. They are undoubtedly the best works of MPM's career--hilarious, heart-warming, romantic, thoughtful, adventurous, and wonderfully well-researched.
All the best things of her earlier writing come to fruition here. She's been writing versions of Amelia and Evelyn and Emerson since the beginning of her writing career, but this is where they become real and tempered, flawed but lovable. Moreover, pairing them with MPM's love for and knowledge of Egyptology was a stroke of brilliance. Set amidst the faded glories of heretic-king Akhenaton's former capital, their bickering, their loyalty, their romance, and their sequence of adventures are eminently satisfying. Amelia's feminism feels right--contemporary, but still brave. Evelyn's sexual choices are not judged--in fact, her courage and her passion are applauded.
Nonetheless, Crocodile feels like an unusual book for her to write--not only was it her first period work under her Elizabeth Peters name, it's her first return to period novels since Greygallows three years before, which in turn had been written five years after Sons. And it feels like she wrote it to purposefully laugh at those earlier works. Amelia is hardly a traditional victim. In fact, she refuses to be a victim at all. The tongue-in-cheek approach to a traditional penny dreadful/contemporary gothic plot, with its self-awareness, its glorious sense of humor, and well-written love affairs are increasingly present elements of her writing. But they are especially effective here.
MPM won't return to the Emerson/Peabody clan for six more years, but once she does, they'll start appearing with a slow but consistent regularity, until we're inundated in gleeful adventures, glorious characters, and more archaeology than you can shake a stick at.
I don't know what else to say about a book I love so much...except to say that its only going to get better from here.
Rating: *****
Favorite Line: “Peculiar or not, it is my idea of pleasure. Why, why else do you lead this life you don't enjoy it? Don't talk of duty to me; you men always have some high-sounding excuse for indulging yourselves. You go gallivanting over the earth, climbing mountains, looking for the sources of the Nile; and expect women to sit dully at home embroidering. I embroider very badly. I think I would excavate rather well. ”
*Notes:
Set in 1884-5
A prim late Victorian spinster, when Amelia Peabody inherits her father's fortune, she shakes off convention to go globetrotting. Along the way, she rescues the sweet-tempered 'fallen' noblewoman Evelyn Barton-Forbes from poverty and suffering in Rome. The pair travel to Egypt, where they fall in with a pair of archaeologist brothers. While handsome, gentle Walter seems poised to break Evelyn's heart as she dreads the effect of revealing her past to him, Amelia meets her match in ferocious, loud-mouthed Emerson. But when an animated mummy starts taking an interest in the women, all that delicious chemistry catches fire and takes off in a mystery-suspense-gothic spoof that is pure delight.
It's hard to be dispassionate about the Peabody mysteries. They are undoubtedly the best works of MPM's career--hilarious, heart-warming, romantic, thoughtful, adventurous, and wonderfully well-researched.
All the best things of her earlier writing come to fruition here. She's been writing versions of Amelia and Evelyn and Emerson since the beginning of her writing career, but this is where they become real and tempered, flawed but lovable. Moreover, pairing them with MPM's love for and knowledge of Egyptology was a stroke of brilliance. Set amidst the faded glories of heretic-king Akhenaton's former capital, their bickering, their loyalty, their romance, and their sequence of adventures are eminently satisfying. Amelia's feminism feels right--contemporary, but still brave. Evelyn's sexual choices are not judged--in fact, her courage and her passion are applauded.
Nonetheless, Crocodile feels like an unusual book for her to write--not only was it her first period work under her Elizabeth Peters name, it's her first return to period novels since Greygallows three years before, which in turn had been written five years after Sons. And it feels like she wrote it to purposefully laugh at those earlier works. Amelia is hardly a traditional victim. In fact, she refuses to be a victim at all. The tongue-in-cheek approach to a traditional penny dreadful/contemporary gothic plot, with its self-awareness, its glorious sense of humor, and well-written love affairs are increasingly present elements of her writing. But they are especially effective here.
MPM won't return to the Emerson/Peabody clan for six more years, but once she does, they'll start appearing with a slow but consistent regularity, until we're inundated in gleeful adventures, glorious characters, and more archaeology than you can shake a stick at.
I don't know what else to say about a book I love so much...except to say that its only going to get better from here.
Rating: *****
Favorite Line: “Peculiar or not, it is my idea of pleasure. Why, why else do you lead this life you don't enjoy it? Don't talk of duty to me; you men always have some high-sounding excuse for indulging yourselves. You go gallivanting over the earth, climbing mountains, looking for the sources of the Nile; and expect women to sit dully at home embroidering. I embroider very badly. I think I would excavate rather well. ”
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