R.I.P. Barbara Mertz

By Emily Langer Washington Post:

Barbara Mertz, an erstwhile Egyptologist better known to millions of readers as Barbara Michaels or Elizabeth Peters, the noms de plume on the covers of her dozens of top-selling historical mysteries and romantic thrillers, died Aug. 8 at her home near Frederick. She was 85.Her daughter, Elizabeth Mertz, confirmed her death and said she did not yet know the cause.

Dr. Mertz was one of the most popular writers of her era and genres. Her oeuvre encompassed ad ven ture, romance, history, the supernatural and timeless themes such as the imprudence of standing in the way of a woman on a mission. She churned out books with extraordinary speed, once remarking that she had lost count of them sometime around the publication of her 50th volume.She wrote more than two dozen novels as Barbara Michaels, the pseudonym under which she made her fiction debut with “The Master of Blacktower” in 1966, and more than three dozen as Elizabeth Peters. Those books included a long-running series about the parasol-toting Victorian pyramid explorer Amelia Peabody.“Between Amelia Peabody and Indiana Jones, it’s Amelia — in wit and daring — by a landslide,” author Paul Theroux once wrote in the New York Times.

SANDRA BALZO'S REVIEW OF AMMIE, COME HOME



On AMMIE, COME HOME by Barbara Michaels Barbara Mertz (aka Elizabeth Petersand Barbara Michaels) passed away August 8. Her AMMIE, COME HOME, written as Barbara Michaels, is my all-time favorite book and helped me through a difficult time in my life. When I wrote an essay about it for Jim Huang’s Mystery Muses: 100 Classics That Inspire Today’s Mystery Writers, Barbara (who I’d never met) sent me a handwritten note saying she was glad the book hadn’t been forgotten. Bless her–neither she nor her books will be. 




Sandra BalzoAuthor of the Maggy Thorsen and Main Street Mysteries from Severn HouseWatch for Murder on the Orient Espresso, coming in December!www.SandraBalzo.com