The Snake, the Crocodile and the Dog, by Elizabeth Peters (Amelia Peabody #7)

Due to the success of my latest reading experiment (ha!), I again started 2 books at the same time. I tried to resist, but I just had to read the next one of the Amelia Peabody series, The Snake, the Crocodile and the Dog.

Plot description:

"Indomitable Amelia Peabody is nearly undone in the latest romantic thriller to feature this strong-minded Victorian archeologist and her husband, Radcliffe Emerson. Leaving in England their precocious son Ramses and Nefret, an orphan girl whom they rescued from an ancient Sudanese city in The Last Camel Died at Noon , Amelia and Emerson return to Egypt. Assorted kidnapping attempts, including one from Shepheard's hotel, suggest that someone, probably their archenemy (known as the Master Criminal), seeks to uncover the location of Nefret's lost city of gold.

Amelia courageously rescues Emerson after he is abducted, only to find he has lost his memory, even of his love for her. In the company of wealthy American archeologist Cyrus Vandergelt, they proceed to a dig to search for Nefertiti's tomb, where Amelia tries to awaken Emerson's memory while hoping to disprove an ancient superstition that threatens death by snake, crocodile and dog.

Posted later...

I simply adored The Snake, The Crocodile and The Dog. An A from me. As soon as I finished it, I literally had to stop myself from grabbing the next one in the series and starting to read it immediately.

Incredibly, a large part of the plot is Emerson's amnesia. Shades of the worst type of category romances, no? But it was really good. This allowed Peters to go back in time, in a sense, and to have Amelia and Emerson court again, and back in Amarna (the setting of the first book) too. All this in the context of a very entertaining plot. The only thing that bothered me was the resolution. Having Cyrus turn out to be Sethos in disguise was a bit iffy, IMO. Almost like cheating on Peters' part.

I was a bit disappointed in the beginning to see that Ramses wasn't accompanying them in this particular trip. As I've mentioned, Ramses is usually one of the best elements of these books. However, Ramses was there through his letters, with the added bonus that this way he was (finally!) allowed to express himself without interruptions on his mother's part. :-D

I'll do my best to restrain myself from reading The Hippopotamus Pool as soon as I finish what I'm presently reading. I don't want to read them all back to back.