Expatriate Adventures in Turn-of-the-Century Egypt

One danger of becoming emotionally attached to characters in a long-running series is that you risk being manipulated if the author decides to toy with your feelings just to advance the plot. Take “The Falcon at the Portal” (Avon, 384 pages, $24), the latest in Elizabeth Peters’ delightful Amelia Peabody series, set in a Victorian Egypt, abounding with horse-drawn cabs, pyramids, fat pashas and dahabeeyahs (houseboats). In the past, I have stoically borne my anxiety when the formidable, lethal parasol-toting Amelia was kidnapped, when Emerson, her hot-tempered and even hotter-blooded husband (known to the Egyptians as “Father of Curses”) got amnesia, and I’ve remained sanguine in the face of unimaginable hazards that have befallen son Ramses (whose Egyptian sobriquet is “Brother of Demons”) and exquisite ward Nefret--an heiress and former priestess of Isis. (Talk about a girl having everything.) However, this time Peters has pushed me over the brink.

To be fair, the first 200 pages are everything you’d want in a mystery--with the author’s trademark interplay of loopy characters, archeological details and turn-of-the-century ex-patriot society. It begins in London where the Emerson clan has gathered to witness the wedding of Amelia’s niece, Lia, to David, Ramses’ best friend. The family discovers that a talented forger is selling faux Egyptian scarabs, papyrus and antiquities, and fears that David, who used to be such a forger, is somehow involved. The menace escalates when they decamp to Cairo for the annual dig and must contend with the forger, Amelia’s smarmy nephew, Percy, a body at the bottom of an excavation shaft and a small but disconcerting surprise.

What drove me batty was a subplot between Ramses and Nefret that the author has left on simmer for the last three books. Just when it looked as if the matter were resolved, I was spun in an entirely different direction. This, of course, is an author’s prerogative, but as Nefret has always been levelheaded and understanding of Ramses, her response was unbelievable. Especially since, without giving anything away, there was an obvious, more logical explanation staring her right in the face. New readers will find the ending quite satisfying, but I felt like I’d been had.

Do I await the next episode anyway? You bet.

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The inhabitants of Anne Perry’s Victorian alternative universe seem perpetually on the brink of a moral implosion, but in “Bedford Square” (Ballantine, 330 pages, $24.95), her latest Charlotte andThomas Pitt novel, the sense of impending agony is almost palatable. Supt. Pitt is called to investigate when a lower-class body is found on Gen. Brandon Balantyne’s upper-class doorstep. Fans will remember Balantyne, who has twice before been touched by crime and is secretly enamored with Charlotte, Thomas’ high-born wife. Not only is the general a suspect--again!--he’s also being blackmailed over an alleged incident in the Abyssinian Campaign 25 years ago.

And he is not alone. Pitt--assisted by Charlotte, their scrappy maid Gracie, the bluer-than-blueblood octogenarian Lady Vespasia and the curmudgeonly Sgt. Tellman--discovers that all over London men of power and influence are facing extortion and in each case “the charge is the most painful that particular man could face.”

Living in the post-Monica era, it’s difficult to picture that anyone would resort to blackmail (why not just be a commentator for MSNBC?) or that a powerful man could feel shame. It’s also inconceivable that it took Pitt so long to pick up an obvious connection between the victims. Even so, the denouement is a shock and the scene in which Gracie makes a bubble and squeak--an English dish I’d eat only after eight days on a lifeboat--for Sgt. Tellman, charming and romantic.

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Best summer vacation read: “Mistaken Identity” (Harper Collins, 480 pages, $24), by Lisa Scottoline. Bennie Rosato, a Philadelphia criminal attorney, is asked to defend a woman charged with murder. But when she enters a maximum security prison to meet her, Bennie finds the prisoner is her double and claims to be her twin. I couldn’t put it down.

The Times reviews mysteries every other week. Next week: Rochelle O’Gorman on audio books.

For more reviews, read Book Review

* Sunday: Adam Hochschild on “Dunant’s Dream: War, Switzerland and the History of the Red Cross”; Barbara Ehrenreich on World War I; and Michael Frank on Pat Barker’s “Another World.”