Crocodile on the Sandbank (Amelia Peabody, #1)

by Elizabeth Peters

She was too kind, and too truthful. Both, I have found, are inconvenient character traits.

“God help the poor mummy who encounters you, Peabody,” he said bitterly. “We ought to supply it with a pistol, to even the odds.”

I hope I number patience among my virtues, but shilly-shallying, when nothing is to be gained by delay, is not a virtue.