Murderers, Dead Bodies and Overthrowing the Government – Quotables

I went to America … and read twelve books of the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters (as you do). I wrote down several amusing quotations. (I would be sitting in a chair and giggling. Yes, people noticed. No, I didn’t mind. My humour was tickled, you see, and when my humour is tickled nothing short of a giggle or a smile will do to indulge it,)

Ordinarily I would agree with your premise, Peabody – that there cannot be many individuals in Egypt who yearn to make off with Ramses – but I have learned to my sorrow, we seem to attract criminals as a dog attracts fleas. I should feel hurt if we had fewer than five or six murderers after us.

– Lion in the Valley

Abdullah clapped his hand to his brow. “Not a dead man, sitt. Not another dead man … ” A flicker of reviving hope returned to his stricken brow. “Is it a mummy you mean, sitt? An old man?”

– Lion in the Valley

… and the same commentator remarked, “It is the Sitt Hakim. No doubt she will cut off the man’s arm,” to which his companion replied eagerly, “Lean back so that I can see better”

– also Lion in the Valley.

“Well, of course,” Emerson said virtuously. “That is my method. Tact, subtle persuasion.”

“Such as calling Mr Budge a rascal and threatening to knock him flat?”

– Hippopotamus Pool

If all else fails, we will simply have to drug our attendants, overpower the guards, raise the oppressed peasants to arms and take over the government

– The Last Camel Died at Noon

I greatly enjoyed reading some of this series. If you are looking for a husband-and-wife archaeologist/mystery-solvin’ team that has plenty of wit and action and a fair dose of history (the author had a PhD in Egyptology after all) then check these books out. And you don’t even need to travel half-way across the world to read them. Like me. If you fancy reading the ebook version, the entire series is £0.77 per book on Amazon, so it isn’t dear at all.

Is there objectionable content? One of the things that marred my reading of the later books was the occasional use of Christ’s name as a swear word which for me, as a Christian, is blasphemous and jarring. But the character who uses it (to illustrate his new maturity? Adulthood? Je ne sais pas) … just,  read one of the earlier books in the series, when he is just a wee laddie. Next to William Brown (of Just William fame), he is my new Favourite Fictional Child. The End.