She needed to see desire in her eyes. To see everything that gave her power over Oxana—her gentleness, her patience, her fucking virtue—dissolve into sexual surrender.
Luke Jennings, Killing Eve: Codename Villanelle [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]
Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews The Ape Who Guards the Balance [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Elizabeth Peters, book 10 of the Amelia Peabody series.
In this volume of the fearsomely-long Amelia Peabody series, the second-generation Peabody-Emersons are no longer children. They are even given their own voices as narrators in the interspersed documents designated “Manuscript H” (Ramses, evidently, though he writes of himself in the third person), and “Letter Collection B” (Nefret). The majority of the text remains Amelia’s journal, although given the growing centrality of the younger characters, she is increasingly “Aunt Amelia.” More than many of the other books in the series, this one is anchored in previously-developed characters and plot strands. I don’t know if I have much confidence that it would read well as a stand-alone novel.
After a fairly lively start involving a theft in England and the attempted abduction of Amelia herself, the bulk of the book takes place in Egypt. The archaeological focus is in the Valley of the Kings, with the Emersons somewhat sidelined by the antiquities establishment. There are kidnappings and murders, and the perpetrators and motives remain obscure for much of the book, with some perplexity resulting from the numerous past villains at loose ends in the Emersons’ world.
There’s a little more action and violence here than the average Peabody book, and plenty of humor — also, some heartache and sorrow. It’s definitely worth the read for someone who has enjoyed earlier volumes in the series.
“I just haven’t had the heart.” And that was the truth.
T Thorn Coyle, Bookshop Witch [Amazon, Bookshop]
I was more pretending to work than I was actually getting much done.
T Thorn Coyle, Bookshop Witch [Amazon, Bookshop]
Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews Seeing a Large Cat [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Elizabeth Peters, book 9 of the Amelia Peabody series.
This ninth Amelia Peabody mystery is the first that I have shared from cover to cover with my Other Reader. We both enjoyed it quite well. It continues the formula established by Peters in the earlier books, this time covering (to my irrelevant excitement) the 1903-1904 excavation season in Egypt.
The “large cat” of the title is perhaps Ramses Emerson, who sports whiskers as a surprise at the outset of the novel, and whose relations with the feline members of the household constitute an ongoing subplot. This volume of the series is one in which the younger generation of Emersons gain a significant degree of independence. Their separate perspective is supplied through the device of excerpts from a “Manuscript H,” supposedly written by Ramses and containing events he would best know, although referring to him in the third person.
On the other hand, the Cat could equally be Katherine Jones, a new character who seems likely to recur in future stories, and whose cat-like qualities are emphasized in descriptions. The gerundial phrasing of the title alludes to the ancient Egyptian dream-interpretation papyrus that is Peabody’s translation project for the season. What indeed is the significance of “seeing a large cat” in one’s dream? This book combines entertaining adventure with ominous portents for its protagonists.
She knew, however, that if she was to escape notice in the world it was essential to wear a mask of normality, and to disguise the extent of her difference.
Luke Jennings, Codename Villanelle [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher]
Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Elizabeth Peters.
This seventh volume of the adventures of Victorian Egyptologist Amelia Peabody Emerson is very much a serial installment. It is hard to imagine enjoying it much without having read several of the earlier books, especially The Crocodile on the Sandbank, Lion in the Valley, and The Last Camel Died at Noon. In fact, this text frequently deploys the advertising footnote: dropping the title of a previous novel into the bottom margin of the page in order to explicate an allusion to earlier adventures. The feature reminds me of nothing so much as 1960s and 70s Marvel comic books, with the continuity cross-references jammed into the corners of panels. The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog also continues author Peters’ metafictional jockeying of material from H. Rider Haggard. This time, she introduces Leo Vincey–a character whose name is lifted from the protagonist of Haggard’s She.
The occasional line drawings introduced in The Last Camel Died at Noon do not persist in The Snake, but there are still several maps to help the reader understand the path of the expedition. The maps are clear, but it’s hard to refer to them, because they are inserted individually in the course of the text, and there is no table or index to note their locations. On a related issue, the “Editor’s Note” at the beginning refers quite inaccurately to a glossary appendix on “page 339,” evidently failing to account for the revised pagination of the paperback edition I read.
I was a little worried by the addition of yet another dependent to the Emerson household at the end of the previous book, and I wondered how an exciting pace could be maintained in the face of such elaborate parental concerns. Peters thankfully managed to have the Emersons leave the children in England for the 1898 archaeological expedition to Egypt in The Snake, and the occasional letters from young Ramses provide excellent comic relief, as well as a clever supplementary plot-line. The relief is necessary, in my view, because of the circumstance of Radcliffe Emerson’s traumatic amnesia, which gives this story more tension and sadness than were typical of the earlier volumes. The resolution of the plot involves multiple “reveals,” the later of which certainly caught me off-guard. But there’s also an intimation of a significant plot point undetected by the narrating sleuth Amelia herself. I’m sure it will be fulfilled in later stories.