The third Amelia Peabody book starts with a Foreword that establishes that the books were written by Amelia and published after her death by her heirs.
The book starts with Amelia and her husband Radcliffe living in England. Their son, nicknamed Ramses, lives with Radcliffe’s brother and his wife. However, Amelia and Radcliffe hear that Evelyn is again pregnant and so Ramses is coming home with his parents. The Emersons are planning to excavate in Egypt again and so they take with them Ramses, his big cat Bastet, and their footman John who is supposed to keep an eye on Ramses.
The Emersons try to get a permission to excavate at Dahshoor’s great pyramids. Unfortunately, Emerson is less than diplomatic about it and they end up at a quite a disparaged site of Mazghuna which is very near to Dahshoor where M. de Morgan is excavating.
After they land in Cairo, Amelia is trying to find some papyri for her brother-in-law and ends up suspecting a local merchant for dubious dealings in illegal antiquities. The merchant agrees to reveal more to her. However, when the Emersons go to meet him, he is found dead. Amelia is convinced that she is now on the trail of antiques smugglers but neither the local authorities nor her husband agrees. Therefore, they leave to Mazghuna.
There they meet a group of missionaries who are trying to convert the locals and Emerson reveals his lack, or rather loathing, of organized religion. However, something strange is happening and once again Amelia must try to get to the bottom of it.
Ramses takes quite a lot of space in the book. On the other hand, it’s quite natural since the writer is her mother. But Ramses is also very, very precocious; he lectures about Egyptology, gets into all sorts to trouble, can never keep his clothes clean, and already at the age of five speaks very fluent English and Arabic, and can translate ancient texts.
To me this book felt more humorous than the previous two mostly because the characters are so over-the-top that I just can’t take them seriously. Also, Emerson’s rivalry with Petrie, dislike of M de Morgan, and banter with the missionaries are quite funny. Also, the start of a romance-subplot stayed thankfully small. I’m going to stick with this series a while longer.
