Thursday, March 24, 2011

The Laughter of Dead Kings/ Elizabeth Peters/ 336 p.

Vicky Bliss, art historian and museum curator turned amateur detective, is back in the 6th and final adventure of this series. When her romantic interest, reformed art-thief and supposedly-respectable dealer John Tregarth is accused of stealing Tutankhamen's mummy, the crew gets pulled into finding the real perpetrators. But has John really reformed?  Or will he leave Vicky in the lurch once again?

 I like all of Elizabeth Peters' books (and love the Amelia Peabody books, which start with Crocodile on the Sandbank) and while not my favorite, I've enjoyed Vicky's adventures, which I've read out of order and over a course of several years. Which is to say, this is not a series that has to be read in order, but this is not the volume to start with.  It's not as funny or clever as some of the others, and the mystery leaves a lot to be desired.  What Peters is good at is creating funny and slightly snarky heroes who make gentle fun of the mystery/adventure/romance melodrama that they are in, while still totally clinging to those genres.  At its best, this makes Peters' books fun and lighthearted reads, but when they fall flat it just gets tiresome. A decent book, nothing special.  But this is an author whose other works are well worth investigating.     

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