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Title: For the Egyptophile
Review: The primary requirement of the fiction writer is to take the reader away and convince him or her that the new setting has a certain reality. This is true of every genre, sci-fi, western, mystery, romance.... Elizabeth Peters does an absolutely remarkable job of that in this novel. Granted, I have a positive predisposition for books set along the Nile; nonetheless this one is outstanding.The plot and mystery might be described as so-so, but the characters and the ambience of Egyption archaeology in Victorian times are perfect. The strange romance between Peabody and Emerson is certainly not of the standard variety. The tombs, the sand, the pyramids, the terrace at Shepheard's...they are enough to carry one away.I've now read the first four in this Amelia Peabody series and so far have found them all to be most convincing.
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