Seeing a Large Cat (An Amelia Peabody Mystery) - Hardcover

Peters, Elizabeth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0446518344 ISBN 13: 9780446518345

Publisher: Grand Central Pub, 1997

Synopsis

In 1903 Egypt, archaeologist Amelia Peabody and her husband, Emerson, encounter danger when they receive a warning not to enter the Valley of the Kings, an assassin tries to halt their discoveries, and Amelia exposes a fraudulent spiritualist. By the author of The Hippopotamus Pool.

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Reviews

In a triumphal procession of eight previous adventures (The Hippopotamus Pool, 1996, etc.), Peters has embellished the mythos of Amelia Peabody: early 20th-century English feminist and Egyptologist, wife to uxorious colleague Emerson, adoptive aunt and mother, respectively, to polite, Anglo-Arabic David and lovely Nephret of the red-gold hair (unconventionally desert-reared) and worried mom to daring, teenaged Ramses, hero and heartthrob in the making. This time, the Cairo digging season opens with a flurry of social invitations, including a mysterious challenge to investigate site 20-A in the Valley of the Kings--a tomb that doesn't exist. Except, of course, that it does, although the body uncovered there has expired so recently that the lady's golden curls and embroidered silks are still intact. Frustrated by etiquette and red tape, Amelia still finds evidence identifying the mummy as the several-years-dead fourth wife of Colonel Bellingham, an expatriate southern gentleman with a predatory belle of a daughter who's gone through paid companions as quickly as the Colonel has gone through young wives. What follows are attempts on Miss Bellingham's life, midnight excursions by the young folks, and Amelia's efforts to help an old friend whose husband is, thanks to the manipulations of a psychic charlatan, lusting after a dead Egyptian princess. Peters compensates for ordinary prose and fussy plotting with humor and nicely calibrated domestic psychology. Fans will follow her, if only to learn how Amelia copes with Ramses's love life. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Amelia Peabody and family begin the 1903 "digging" season in Egypt with the usual anticipation. At least two pleas for help and a mysterious warning about a Valley of the Kings tomb, however, complicate life and lead to the expected dangerous adventure. Essential reading from a pro.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

As her legions of fans will readily testify, Amelia Peabody Emerson, who wields a mean parasol, is not your usual whodunit heroine. Ladies in 1903 did not climb pyramids or excavate Egyptian tombs. And they certainly didn't solve crimes. Amelia, of course, does all three and always does them extremely well. In this new adventure, she's exceptionally busy. Not only must she make sense of a brutal murder and help an old friend whose drippy husband has gone "over the edge," she must also rein in the feminist sensibilities of her pretty adopted daughter (who models herself after Amelia) and keep her headstrong, lovestruck teenage son, Ramses, out of trouble. As usual, Peters' zesty characters--particularly Amelia's explosive archaeologist husband, Radcliffe ("Good Gad, Peabody")--are marvelous, and there's plenty of lively repartee to push the story along. The comedy is great, as well, with Peters' knowing precisely how to balance starchy Amelia's officious social respectability with her penchant for meddling in other people's affairs. Stephanie Zvirin

Edition details

• Publisher: Grand Central Pub
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0446518344
• ISBN 13: 9780446518345
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 386