Daily Archives: August 1, 2009

Review: Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters

Posted on by
2

Title: Crocodile on the Sandbank (the 1st Amelia Peabody mystery)

Author: Elizabeth Peters

Publisher: Warner Books (original edition 1975, this edition 1992)

ISBN: 0-445-40651-8

Length: 262 pages

This is the first book to introduce the impossibly unbelievable heroine Amelia Peabody. It’s around 1880 and Amelia is a 32 year old single woman who has just inherited a sizable fortune. She leaves her native England and, after a short stop in Europe where she acquires a companion by the name of Evelyn who has been ruined by an unfortunate love affair, she heads for Egypt. While waiting for their boat to be ready for a trip down the Nile, Amelia and Evelyn meet the Emerson brothers, Radcliffe and Walter, who they later encounter at Armanah where they are excavating. When the ladies join the dig a mysterious mummy frightens the local workmen away but Amelia is not so easily scared.

This series is something of a guilty reading pleasure for me. I have always been a little obsessed with things Egyptian and so love the tales of the digs and discoveries that are full of fun and adventure. It’s rare for me to want to swap lives with the fictional people I read about but I’d happily switch places with Amelia if such things were possible. Peters clearly knows her subject as even in this first book the historical details are accurate and she takes care to depict the excavations and other events as they would have been carried out at this period (assuming that a force of nature such as Amelia had taken part any way).

This book does a nice job of introducing all the characters of the series: providing some back story but leaving some things too for revelation in later books. Over-the-top Amelia is able to master all manner of skills including medicine, archaeology, negotiation, languages and virtually anything else she turns her mind to. I’m sure she’d be annoying to be around at times but her total disregard for the social conventions of the day would, I think, make up for her superiority complex. The rest of the characters are either equally wonderful human beings (Amelia wouldn’t settle for anything less in her friends) unless they’re dastardly rascals intent on mischief.

If you fancy a girls own adventure with a heroine you can’t help but admire and a liberal dose of humour then try Crocodile on the Sandbank for yourself. The plot is a little convoluted at times but it all works out in the end and, anyway, I like these books more for their sense of time and place and can forgive some annoyances with the plot.

My rating 3.5/5

Review: The Sex Club by L J Sellers

Posted on by
Reply

Title: The Sex Club

Author: L J Sellers

Publisher: Spellbinder Press [2007]

ISBN: 978-0-9795182-0-1

Length: 347 pages

When a bomb explodes at an Oregon birth control clinic Detective Wade Jackson investigates. However, he’s soon pulled of that case when the body of a 14-year old girl, who had been a client of the clinic, is found in a dumpster. Both Jackson and a nurse from the clinic, Kera Kollmorgan, wonder if there is a connection but the cases are treated separately. Kera has information she can’t share with police for confidentiality reasons but she does look into a teen church group that several of the clinic’s clients seem to have been a member of and discovers they’re not meeting for bible studies at all.

This debut novel quite ambitiously includes several separate threads which intersect because the same group of people seem to be connected to both. The two mysteries, the bombing and the murder, are handled differently with one culprit being known to readers all along while the other is not revealed until the end of the novel. This kind of complexity could easily have led to disaster but the book is well plotted and satisfyingly wrapped up and even has a few surprises. There’s a good pace to the story and it’s a testament to the writing that I finished the book within a day (and night).

The ‘goodies’ in the novel, Jackson and Kera, are provided with back stories that explain their present-day goodness and are generally well-rounded characters. Soon-to-be single dad Jackson in particular is the kind of nice bloke with a handful of personal problems that can easily sustain interest. But the rest of the characters, both the ‘badies’ and even the victims are pretty one dimensional and not particularly credible. I know there are rabid right-wing religious conservatives in the world (I’ve seen Jesus Camp) but I never really believed the ones in this story, especially not the woman whose point of view we see about a third of the book from. I needed a bit more back story to explain how she got to be the way she was and believe the things she believed. When combined with Kera’s self righteous moral high-ground this made some parts of the book feel too much like a polemic against religious conservatism and, regardless of how much I may agree with the point of view, I don’t like being lectured to in my fiction. After all it’s only preaching to the converted as I can’t imagine too many people who need to read something that exposes the lunacy of their point of view would actually pick up this book.

Overall though this is a well told story and I think the Detective Jackson character has the potential to form the backbone of a good series. Sellers writes well and has demonstrated that she can handle the kind of complex story that makes interesting reading. For my taste future books would need to back off the lecturing but I will certainly give another book a chance. And on the never ending question of whether or not a book should be judged by its cover I have to say the cover of this one is quite exquisite: it’s so good to see a departure from dripping blood or silhouetted running men.

My rating 3.5/5

Other stuff

Reviewed at Mysterious Reviews and Reviews by T de V

The second book in the Wade Jackson series, Secrets to Die For, will be released (in the US at least) in September 2009