Tomb of the Golden Bird
By Elizabeth Peters

Reviewed by Frances Rossi

I discovered Elizabeth Peters on one of our yearly visits to my parents’ home in the mid- 1980s. It was, if I recall correctly, The Curse of the Pharaohs, the first of the Amelia Peabody series to feature Amelia as the wife of archaeologist Radcliffe Emerson, and their  precocious young son Ramses. Thereafter, at every summer visit I could count on finding another installment of the Emersons’ adventures in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, accompanied by their ever-growing family. In fact, the growth of their family seemed to parallel our own, and the family resemblances, right down to the cat, were quite notable.

 After my father retired, a focal point of our visits generally entailed a trip to the bookstore, where Dad would look up the latest Elizabeth Peters mystery. During the last few years of his life, since by then he had read them all, he began to stalk the local bookstores, waiting for the next one to come out.

What is it about the Amelia Peabody books that keeps them selling out of bookstores and leaves people hungering for the next one? For my part,  I anticipate, with each story, rejoining the Emerson family, of which I feel like a member. My mother always looked forward to finding out what "little Ramses" was doing now (almost as if these were annual Christmas letters from old friends), and she enjoyed comparing the Emerson cats’ antics to her own Sheba’s.

The Emerson family is believable because Peters has created characters that ring true to the contemporary era while remaining believable in their own historical setting. Amelia Peabody first visits Egypt in 1892—a headstrong woman, a feminist of sorts, but also a romantic. She prides herself in thinking with scientific objectivity and conducting her life by the most orderly of principles, but in her “journals” we detect her feminine side emerging as if from the unconscious—although Amelia would never be able to admit such a concept to Emerson, for whom such psychological constructs were pure balderdash.

In following the Emersons, we trace the history of the period from 1884 until 1922, encompassing the Turn of the Century and the gradual waning of Victorian mores, the growing interest in Egyptian archaeology, climaxing in the greatest discovery of all—that of Tutankhamon’s tomb in 1922.

This latest in the series, Tomb of the Golden Bird, brings the Emersons to the scene of that excavation and their unrecognized role in saving the tomb’s contents from the ravages of tomb robbers and other human predators. Ramses and his wife Nefret and their own two children join in the effort to solve the mystery that comes to light when Emerson’s eccentric brother Sethos appears bearing news of a nebulous conspiracy. Those were the years immediately following World War I, when boundaries in the Middle East had been redrawn, and as-yet-unstable governments ruled the new countries carved from the old Ottoman Empire.

The plot in question seems to revolve around a coup planned for Egypt and Iraq simultaneously—resonating hauntingly in today’s political climate. With her usual aplomb, Peters weaves the threat of assassins and undetermined assailants, a secret code, and the lure of King Tut’s tomb, so close at hand and yet so devilishly remote, into a knot that refuses to untie until the last few pages.

What is truly remarkable about the story is the way it weaves itself in amongst  the actual events. Howard Carter, who actually discovered Tutankhamen’s tomb, along with his sponsor Lord Carnarvon, are well acquainted with the Emersons and their parallel archaeological digs in the Valley of the Kings, and find themselves invited to Amelia’s tea table more than once. Peters’ description of the tomb’s contents corresponds with the one on view at the Egyptian Picture Gallery at Historylink101.com.

Amelia Peabody fans will snap up this latest episode in the family history, but it will also appeal to anyone interested in King Tut or in Egyptian archaeology. Anyone looking for a mystery series that embodies humor, historical interest, and human relationships cannot go wrong here. I would recommend this book, of course, but also suggest the first book in the series, Crocodile on the Sandbank, published in 1975, to follow up with if you enjoy this one.

Tomb of the Golden Bird by Elizabeth Peters is available in bookstores March 24th, 2006.

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