Seeing a Large Cat, by Elizabeth Peabody (Amelia Peabody #9)

I also started number 9 of the Amelia Peabody series, by Elizabeth Peters: Seeing a Large Cat. This is also a reread.

Plot summary:

Peabody and Emerson receive a warning: "Stay away from tomb Twenty-A!". Along the way to solving the mystery, the Emersons meet a spoiled young woman, an overprotective father, and an intelligent con artist, in addition to discovering that Ramses has grown from a precocious child to a teenage heartthrob. Ramses strikes out with his adopted cousin David and beautiful Nefret on adventures that are best not known to anybody...especially Amelia.

Posted later...

I've just noticed: both of the books I'm reading right now take place in North Africa; The Veiled Web in Morocco and Seeing a Large Cat in Egypt. LOL! How often does that happen?

And posted later still...

I completey forgot to post yesterday. I finished Seeing a Large Cat and read another book.

The Peters book was lovely. A B+. It was just like visiting old friends, but seeing they are growing up and changing for the better. This book introduces another point of view into the series, through the so-called Manuscript H. In it, we can see the actions of Ramses, Nefret and David, including what they don't tell Amelia. I loved these parts, and I wished there were more of them. Actually, my favourite scene in the book takes place in a Manuscript H portion: when Ramses confesses his feelings for Nefret to David. Awww! I immediately went back and reread it all twice. I can't wait for Ramses and Nefret to get together, but I think that doesn't happen for 2 more books. :-( OMG! I'm turning into one of those 'shippers Mrs. Giggles complains about!

Another good thing about Manuscript H is how it gently pokes fun at Amelia, by showing us what people really think about some of the things she does. It's interesting, because before we had only her point of view. Sometimes you could read between the lines and see what people thought (stuff that Amelia didn't realize, supposedly), but I like this device.

The mystery stuff was fun too, but a bit obvious. I think I guessed it too easily, maybe because I read this one a few years ago, so I subconsciously remembered a bit? Not much, though: I must have had this one mixed up with another one, because I was completely sure I remembered that Dolly wasn't really the Colonel's daughter, but an actress hired to play that role. I wonder what book that one comes from!

The only thing I didn't like here was the ending... a foreshadowing, I think it's called. Peters' uses this a lot, but while it works when you're halfway through a book, when you have time for whatever bad thing is coming to happen and then to be solved, this was practically the final line. The only use it had was to end the book in a depressing note. I closed it and sighed, sadly.