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Authors: Elizabeth Peters

Amelia Peabody Omnibus 1-4

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Amelia Peabody Omnibus 1-4
Amelia Peabody [1]
Elizabeth Peters
Constable Robinson (2012)

Amelia Peabody is Elizabeth Peters' most brilliant and best-loved creation, a thoroughly Victorian feminist who takes the stuffy world of archaeology by storm with her shocking men's pants and no-nonsense attitude!

  • Join our plucky Victorian Egyptologist , together with her devastatingly handsome and brilliant husband Radcliffe, in another exciting escapade When Lady Baskerville's husband Sir Henry dies after discovering what may have been an undisturbed royal tomb in Luxor, she appeals to eminent archaeologist Radcliffe Emerson and his wife Amelia to take over the excavation. Amid rumours of a curse haunting all those involved with the dig, the intrepid couple proceeds to Egypt, where they begin to suspect that Sir Henry did not die a natural death, and they are confident that the accidents that plague the dig are caused by a sinister human element, not a pharoah's curse
  • Join our plucky Victorian Egyptologist , together with her devastatingly handsome and brilliant...
  •  

    AMELIA PEABODY, born in 1852, found her life’s work and life partner in 1884, when on a trip to Egypt she married Egyptologist, Radcliffe Emerson. Their son Walter ‘Ramses’ Emerson was born three years later, and their adopted daughter, Nefret, joined the family in 1898. Other important members of the family include several generations of Egyptian cats.

    Although the Emersons own a handsome Queen Anne mansion in Kent, they spend half of each year digging in Egypt and fighting off criminals of all varieties. Amelia is planning to draw her last breath holding a trowel in one hand and her deadly parasol in the other.

    Amelia Peabody Murder Mystery Series
    THE DEEDS OF THE DISTURBER
    THE LAST CAMEL DIED AT NOON
    THE SNAKE, THE CROCODILE AND THE DOG
    THE HIPPOPOTAMUS POOL
    SEEING A LARGE CAT
    THE APE WHO GUARDS THE BALANCE
    THE FALCON AT THE PORTAL
    THUNDER IN THE SSKY
    LORD OF THE SILENT
    THE GOLDEN ONE
    CHILDREN OF THE STORM
    GUARDIAN OF THE HORIZON
    THE SERPENT ON THE CROWN
    TOMB OF THE GOLDEN BIRD
    AMELIA PEABODY’S MURDER MYSTERY OMNIBUS
    ELIZABETH PETERS
    Constable & Robinson Ltd
    55-56 Russell Square
    London WC1B 4HP
    www.constablerobinson.com
    Crocodile on the Sandbank
    First Published in the UK
    By Robinson Publishing Ltd 1999
    This paperback edition published by Robinson, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2006
    Copyright_MPM Manor, Inc. 1999, 2006
    The Curse of the Pharaohs
    First published in the USA
    by Dodd, Mead & Company 1981
    First published in the UK by Robinson, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2000 This paperback edition published by Robinson, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2006
    Copyright © MPM Manor, Inc. 1981, 2000, 2006
    The Mummy Case
    Lion in the Valley
    First published in the UK by Robinson Publishing Ltd 2001
    This paperback edition published by Robinson, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2006
    Copyright © MPM Manor, Inc. 2001, 2006
    All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
    A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
    ISBN: 9781780339788
    Printed and bounded in the EU

     

    CONTENTS
    Crocodile on the Sandbank
    Dedication
    Author’s Note
    I
    II
    III
    IV
    V
    VI
    VII
    VIII
    IX
    X
    XI
    XII

     

    The Curse of the Pharaohs
    Dedication
    I
    II
    III
    IV
    V
    VI
    VII
    VIII
    IX
    X
    XI
    XII
    XIII
    XIV
    XV
    XVI
    XVII

     

    The Mummy Case
    Foreword
    I
    II
    III
    IV
    V
    VI
    VII
    VIII
    IX
    X
    XI
    XII

     

    Lion in the Valley
    Foreword
    I
    II
    III
    IV
    V
    VI
    VII
    VIII
    IX
    X
    XI
    XII
    XIII
    XIV
    CROCODILE ON
    THE SANDBANK
    Elizabeth Peters
    ROBINSON
    London

     

    To my son Peter

     

    The love of my beloved is on yonder side
    A width of water is between us
    And a crocodile waiteth on the sandbank.


    Ancient Egyptian Love Poem
    A
    UTHOR

    S
    N
    OTE

    A
    LTHOUGH
    my major characters are wholly fictitious, certain historic personages make brief appearances in these pages. Maspero, Brugsch and Grebaut were associated with the Egyptian Department of Antiquities in the 1880’s, and William Flinders Petrie was then beginning his great career in Egyptology. Petrie was the first professional archaeologist to excavate at Tell el Amarna and I have taken the liberty of attributing some of his discoveries – and his ‘advanced’ ideas about methodology – to my fictitious archaeologists. The painted pavement found by Petrie was given the treatment I have described by Petrie himself. Except for discrepancies of this nature I have attempted to depict the Egypt of that era, and the state of archaeological research in the late nineteenth century, as accurately as possible, relying on contemporary travel books for details. In order to add verisimilitude to the narrative, I have used the contemporary spelling of names of places and pharaohs, as well as certain words like ‘dahabeeyah.’ For example, the name of the heretic pharaoh was formerly read as ‘Khuenaten.’ Modern scholars prefer the reading ‘Akhenaten.’ Similarly, ‘Usertsen’ is the modern ‘Senusert.’

    I

    W
    HEN
    I first set eyes on Evelyn Barton-Forbes she was walking the streets of Rome –

    (I am informed, by the self-appointed Critic who reads over my shoulder as I write, that I have already committed an error. If those seemingly simple English words do indeed imply that which I am told they imply to the vulgar, I must in justice to Evelyn find other phrasing.)

    In justice to myself, however, I must insist that Evelyn was doing precisely what I have said she was doing, but with no ulterior purpose in mind. Indeed, the poor girl had no purpose and no means of carrying it out if she had. Our meeting was fortuitous, but fortunate. I had, as I have always had, purpose enough for two.

    I had left my hotel that morning in considerable irritation of spirits. My plans had gone awry. I am not accustomed to having my plans go awry. Sensing my mood, my small Italian guide trailed behind me in silence. Piero was not silent when I first encountered him, in the lobby of the hotel, where, in common with others of his kind, he awaited the arrival of helpless foreign visitors in need of a translator and guide. I selected him from amid the throng because his appearance was a trifle less villainous than that of the others.

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