The Painted Queen

Starred review from May 1, 2017
The long-running series by MWA Grand Master Peters (1927–2013) featuring forthright Amelia Peabody Emerson and her irascible archeologist husband, Radcliffe Emerson, comes full circle with this energetic final novel completed by Hess, Peters’s friend and fellow mystery author. In 1912, the Emersons revisit Amarna, the setting of the first Peabody book, 1975’s Crocodile on the Sandbank; Egypt’s Service des Antiquités director Maspero is worried about the disappearance of German archeologist Morgenstern from the excavation there. Peabody soon locates Morgenstern in Cairo, but his erratic behavior and ties to forgers of a priceless likeness of famed queen Nefertiti disturb her. Efforts to locate the original artifact are complicated by attempts on Peabody’s life by men wearing monocles, an interlude with a melodramatic romance novelist, and the reappearances of the Emerson family’s nemesis, Sethos. Although fans may be a bit disappointed by some unresolved questions (such as Peters’s hints of a connection between the Peabody and Vicky Bliss series), the Emerson clan takes a fitting final bow as the curtain falls on a pioneering career. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary Agency.

May 15, 2017
The 19th installment of the adventures of an archaeological family facing a vendetta as they chase a real-life artifact.Life is never dull for Amelia Peabody in her marriage to professor Radcliffe Emerson, the greatest Egyptologist of the 19th century--and now the 20th. Even a bubble bath in Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo is anything but restful when a man bursts in on Amelia, utters "You....Murder!," and falls dead with a knife in his back. When Emerson rushes to his wife and searches the corpse's pocket, he finds a card with the name "Judas" written on it. Emerson also trips over a small carved wooden head of Akhenaton, the Heretic Pharaoh, whose capital city, Tell el-Amarna, is the next stop but one on the Emersons' itinerary. Reunited there with their son, Ramses, they learn that a man had tried to kill him, too, and that another target on Judas' hit list is the chief excavator of the Amarna site, Herr Morgenstern, who's been behaving oddly and taken himself off to Cairo. With the discovery and disappearance of a beautiful painted carving of Nefertiti comes the realization that the Emersons' foster daughter's late husband's five half brothers have sworn vengeance on her adoptive family. One brother was the Judas who was stabbed in the back; Guy (for Fawkes) dies in his attempt to blow up the Emersons; Cromwell's namesake is decapitated when he tries to kill Ramses. Subsequent murders, abductions, flash floods, camel-back races, and interventions by a supposed nemesis alternate with frequent breaks for tea, sandwiches, and whiskey as the Emersons wonder what fate's in store for them and their remaining assassins, Absalom and Flitworthy. Hess (Pride vs. Prejudice, 2015, etc.) undoubtedly had a daunting task in completing the final manuscript of the late Egyptologist Peters (A River in the Sky, 2010, etc.). Fans will cherish the legacy; newcomers will be forgiven for fidgeting through the busy plot and arch humor.

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March 1, 2017
When she died in 2013, the multi-award-winning Peters left much of the manuscript plus extensive notes for this 20th entry in the series starring Amelia Peabody and her archaeologist husband. Writing buddy Hess agreed to complete the story, which has the protagonists chasing after a stolen bust of Queen Nefertiti as Amelia dodges assassins.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 2, 2017
The final novel in the Amelia Peabody mystery series features outspoken archaeologist Amelia and company dodging assassins while searching from Cairo to Amama for the stolen bust of Queen Nefertiti. Almost as challenging as Amelia’s quest is reader Rosenblat’s task of giving voice to these larger-than-life characters with charm and credibility intact. The actor, who plays Miss Rosa on Orange is the New Black, smartly captures Amelia’s husband Radcliffe’s irascibility and bombast without edging into snobbery. Her mirroring of the fragile relationship between moody son Ramses and aloof daughter-in-law Nefrit, caught just after the demise of their hasty marriage, is exemplary. And her silken, unruffled voice for“master criminal” Sethos fits both his good-bad-guy status and his flirtatious nature. He, like everyone except the assassins, has fallen under the spell of the novel’s protagonist-narrator Amelia, whom Rosenblat presents with all of her romantic, confident, stubborn, feminist, witty, and intelligent flags flying. A Morrow hardcover.

May 1, 2017
Loyal fans of the Amelia Peabody mysteries will welcome this final episode, accurately reported by Peters' friend and fellow mystery writer Hess. The death of Peters (pen name of Barbara Mertz) in 2013 signaled the end of the much-loved 20-book series. Hess has done an excellent job of carrying the narrative forward in Peters' fast-paced, entertaining style, portraying the series' palpable sense of adventure and the affection and witty repartee between Egyptologist Peabody and her husband, Radcliffe Emerson. The Emersons are back in Amarna, Egypt, for the 191213 excavation season, where the famous bust of Nefertiti has been discovered by Ludwig Borchardt. Problems occur when the bust disappears, then reappears in duplicate. Amelia and Emerson are so distracted by the implications of this event that a gang of monocle-sporting killers seems a minor inconvenience. Everyone in the familiar Peabody-Emerson cast is present or accounted for, tying up loose ends with panache and optimism. Series devotees may choose to branch out with the exploits of Tasha Alexander's similarly clever Lady Emily Ashton.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)