A To Z Blogging Challenge 2025: Mysteries: P Is For Amelia Peabody

 The Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters(the pen name of Egyptologist Barbara Mertz) is 20 books set mainly in Egypt in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Amelia and her husband Radcliffe Emerson are archaeologists who travel to Egypt every season to dig, and have adventures, usually including a dead body or two and a mystery to solve. They meet in the first novel, The Crocodile On The Sandbank, when Amelia and her companion Evelyn, whom she had rescued in Italy, arrive in Egypt. Amelia, after years spent looking after her father, inherits his money, something her siblings don’t like. She decides to finally travel abroad and enjoy life.  Amelia marries Radcliffe(whom she calls Emerson) and Evelyn marries his brother Walter. Amelia and Emerson have a bright son, Walter, who is nicknamed Ramses for his arrogant personality. He is very precocious, knowing about languages and Egypt from early childhood onwards.  

One of the novels, The Last Camel Died At Noon, is a tribute to H. Rider Haggard and features the Emersons and their son stumbling across an ancient Egyptian colony somewhere in Nubia. There, they meet Nefret, daughter of friends who had arrived there earlier. As she is an orphan, they take her home and adopt her. Nefret doesn’t have Victorian ideas and shocks some people at home. She is a strong young woman. 

The series is very elaborate and detailed, with new characters turning up throughout the series, which goes as far as the early 1920s. During that time, the children of both couples grow up and have their own adventure. The Great War happens and an adult Ramses is involved, working for British Intelligence. There are historical characters such as Flinders Petrie and Howard Carter. There is a mysterious character known as Sethos or the Master Criminal who pops up  every so often. Their dig supervisor, Abdullah, has a large family who also take part in the adventures. 

The stories are set over 39 years, during which genuine historical events happen. It’s not like other series I’ve read, where you get about 25 novels which seem to happen over a year or two. 

They are in the form of Amelia’s journals, supposedly found and edited after being found in an attic. 

I haven’t read the entire series yet - and the last novel was published after the author’s death - but I intend to reread and finish it. The books are great fun, especially if you are interested in archaeology, which is much more than a background. The author was an Egyptologist and knew what she was doing. She also wrote another series, about a character called Vicky Bliss, but I think the Amelia Peabody books are more interesting, and better-known.

They are in print and ebook, both Kindle and Apple Books,  and should be easily available in your library, bookshop or web site.