Tomb of the Golden Bird (Amelia Peabody, #18) in Around the World in 80 Books

Sep 23, 2023 Nadine in NY Jones rated it liked it

Shelves: era-early-1900s, mystery, audio, historical-fiction, egypt

This is the slowest of all of the Amelia Peabody mysteries. There is very little "mystery" at all - again and again, clues to a mystery turn out to be falsehoods designed to distract, for one reason or another. The "golden bird" of the title is a canary that met an untimely end thanks to a cobra that got into its cage - poor bird didn't stand a chance, and it all happened "off stage," so to speak. This has absolutely nothing to do with any of the events in the book - the canary isn't even owned This is the slowest of all of the Amelia Peabody mysteries. There is very little "mystery" at all - again and again, clues to a mystery turn out to be falsehoods designed to distract, for one reason or another. The "golden bird" of the title is a canary that met an untimely end thanks to a cobra that got into its cage - poor bird didn't stand a chance, and it all happened "off stage," so to speak. This has absolutely nothing to do with any of the events in the book - the canary isn't even owned by the Emersons.

There is one main clue to what might be a mystery provided by Emerson's brother, Sethos: an encrypted message. Ramses does his best, but he is stymied by the code. After that, entire CHAPTERS go by with no one working on deciphering this, or even mentioning it!

Despite the almost complete lack of an actual mystery to be solved, this book does manage to be engaging and entertaining and the opposite of dull! Most of my interest was due solely to caring about the characters, however - if someone unfamiliar with the series picked this up hoping for an entertaining mystery, they would be disappointed. Nineteen twenty two was the year of the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb, and with the Emerson's right there on the scene, Peters must have felt she could not ignore that historic event. Of course the Emersons are fictional so they weren't ACTUALLY involved, and the way that Peters manages to involve them without involving them is really quite brilliant.

I'm not sure why Peters decided not to include an actual mystery in this volume. Maybe she had run out of ideas. This is the chronological end of the Emersons's story, and perhaps Peters herself was beginning to have health problems, or maybe just feeling her own mortality and wanting to tie up loose ends in her long-running tale. Peters may not have been sure at the time if she would ever write another book with these characters (although of course she did, but they take place at an earlier time period). There is a sadness attached to both things. ...more

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Sep 09, 2019 Rachel N. rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2019, mystery, series, egypt, historical-mystery

Chronologically the last book in the Amelia Peabody series though Elizabeth Peters did write one more book after this, set earlier. It's 1922 and Howard Carter has just discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen. Emerson and Howard have a fight so Emerson can only watch from the sidelines as the tomb begins to be excavated. Meanwhile someone is threatening members of the family and the threats are once again tied to Sethos. There wasn't as much of a mystery in this book but I enjoyed getting to spend ti ...more

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Apr 06, 2011 Georgia Carvalho rated it really liked it

It was with some sadness that I read the last of the Emerson's story. I liked the book, but not as much as some of the earlier ones in the series ...more

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