By Elizabeth Peters. Copyright 1988 (reprint), Mysterious Press.

Buy it now from Amazon.com

Finished Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth peters last night. With only one Tony Hillerman Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee mystery left to read (the latest, Skeleton Man), and with Hillerman starting to slow down and write shorter novels as he gets older, I'm in desperate need of an entirely new series of mystery novels with well-developed characters, long-reaching plot and character arcs, and an exotic setting -- provided you consider the American Southwest exotic. Frankly, I always thought it qualified and that it was unfair that the exotic tag was limited to places with palm trees. A random perusal of the mystery shelves at the local book store resulted in the sizable Elizabeth Peters section catching my eye. As with Hillerman, she is fabulously popular and well-known among mystery aficionados, but as I have established time and again, in terms of both popular music and literature, I am completely out of touch with pervading currents and trends -- not because I have some sort of hipster predisposition toward ignorance as a form of coolness, but merely because I'm generally out of touch with most things.

Peters' novels are mysteries set against the backdrop of Egypt during the 1800s, revolving around a crew of intrepid Victorians as they engage in archaeology, adventure, and the occasional mummy fistfight. So right there I figured her writing was worth a shot, as the Victorian era, Egypt, adventure, archaeology, and mummy fistfights all hold great appeal for me. Crocodile on the Sandbank is the first of her "Amelia Peabody mysteries,' in which the central character is an obnoxiously sure-of-herself British woman who, tiring of her life alone as an unmarried, middle-aged do-nothing with a sizeable inheritance to her name, decides to set off on a grand tour of the world. Along the way the acquires the company of a beautiful young woman named Evelyn, whom misfortune has befallen in Rome. The two of them make their way to Egypt, where they also meet the gruff, boorish archaeologist Radcliffe Emerson and his considerably more sociable brother, Walter. From there on out is a story that involves sailing down the Nile, digging through the tombs of ancient kings, and persistent mummy that shows up frequently in the night to wave its arms about and moan.

The main characters are wonderfully developed right away. Amelia is almost insufferably cocky about her abilities, but she frequently lives up to her high opinion of herself, and her Victorian confidence in the superiority of her own ways and methods is presented in such a humorous fashion that it doesn't make her an unlikable character. Her obvious foil in the whole affair is the blustering, ill-manner Emerson, an archaeologist who flies into fits of rage at the sad state of archaeological sciences -- and just about anything else. Like Amelia, his opinions, though they ruffle feathers, are often proved correct. The more well-behaved Walter and Evelyn are not quite as memorable, owing to the fact that they tend not to launch into lengthy duels of Victorian British put-downs, but the quartet makes a delightful core group around which orbit a host of equally memorable supporting players.

The mystery itself at the heart of Crocodile on the Sandbank is also comparable to the mysteries presented in Hillerman's Navajo detective novels: it's really not all that hard to unravel, and by the halfway mark, you pretty much know what's going on and likely why it's going on, but that's not really the point. These aren't whodunits that strive to make you cling to every revelation and red herring. They are primarily character driven novels where the mystery takes a distant back seat to the development and interaction of the cast and to the setting and historical detail. Having only gone a single book into Elizabeth Peters' Egyptian universe, I can't adequately compare it to the rich tapestry of the Hillerman characters, as I've read every one of his books and have a much broader base from which to make judgments. But I have high expectations for Peters, and Crocodile on the Sandbank, despite confronting me with an easy-to-figure mystery, has definitely snared me on the strength of its characters, wit, and setting. I'm looking forward with considerably impatience to picking up the next book in the series.

Labels: Espionage