Crocodile on the Sandbank is the first in the long-running Amelia Peabody mystery series by Elizabeth Peters, a pseudonym for the Egyptologist Barbara Mertz. It is also one of my favorite mystery novels of all time. I first read it back in the mid-1990s, shortly after The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King, which is the novel that first made me a mystery-lover (and which I reread, and reviewed, earlier this year). If The Beekeeper’s Apprentice was the book that first made me love mysteries, Crocodile on the Sandbank was the book that really solidified my love for the genre. I just finished rereading it for a book club discussion. It was first published in 1975, so it will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year.
As the novel opens in 1884, Amelia Peabody is an unconventional 32-year-old Englishwoman, independently wealthy after inheriting a fortune from her father, and determined never to marry. In a delightful early scene, which sets the humorous tone for the whole book, her five older brothers say they didn’t realize their father had a fortune until he left it to her. After fending off several unwanted suitors, Amelia decides to travel to Egypt, a country she has always wanted to see. She goes equipped with a sturdy parasol, which she uses to make her way through a crowd or to protect herself from unwanted attention. As a reader of the series will know, it’s hard to imagine Amelia without her parasol.
On the way to Egypt, Amelia stops in Rome, where she comes across a young woman who’s fainted in the Forum. This is Evelyn Barton-Forbes, the granddaughter of an earl, who has run away to Rome with her lover Alberto, her Italian art tutor. Alberto refuses to marry her and abandons her, leaving her destitute. Because of her relationship with Alberto, Evelyn’s dying grandfather has disinherited her and left his estate to her cousin Lucas. Amelia rescues Evelyn and offers her a place as her traveling companion on her journey to Egypt, which Evelyn gladly accepts.
In Cairo, the two women stay at Shepheard’s Hotel and meet the two Emerson brothers, archaeologist Radcliffe and linguist Walter. Radcliffe, who is always referred to as Emerson because he hates his first name, which only Walter is allowed to use, is grumpy, irascible, and disdainful of women. Of course, he’s never met such a strong-willed woman as Amelia before. Sparks fly between the two of them immediately. The younger brother, Walter, is handsome and kind, and he and Evelyn fall in love right away. Evelyn is fearful, though, that Walter won’t love her any more if he finds out about her past with Alberto.
Soon Evelyn’s cousin Lucas, who has inherited their grandfather’s title and estate after the old man’s death, joins them in Cairo and proposes marriage to Evelyn, who refuses. She is clearly upset by her cousin’s sudden appearance, and things get worse when an intruder breaks into the two women’s bedroom at night. Amelia decides they must leave Cairo and sail up the Nile. Before they begin their journey, Amelia falls in love with the pyramids of Giza. Her love of pyramids recurs throughout the series.
Their journey up the Nile takes them to Amarna, the capital of the “heretic pharaoh” Akhenaten, whose name was spelled “Khuenaten” in the 19th century. It is this spelling that Amelia uses. There, Amelia and Evelyn meet up once again with the Emersons, who are excavating the site of Akhenaten’s palace. Emerson is ill with a fever, and Amelia uses her medical skills to treat him. She comments, at one point, that she would have become a doctor if she had been a man. Emerson is very upset that the wall paintings will be ruined without him to supervise, but, to his great surprise, Amelia proves quite capable of rescuing the paintings, and Evelyn, a talented artist, makes copies of them. Emerson is very meticulous as an archaeologist and speaks scornfully of the archaeologists of his time, who ruin the sites in the attempt to find treasure.
Troubles soon begin, though, as the camp is visited at night by a walking mummy. The villagers who work for the Emersons think the Mummy is a supernatural being, sent to scare them off from the heretic pharaoh’s tomb, and they refuse to work any more. Emerson, who doesn’t believe in the supernatural, knows the Mummy is a human in disguise. But who is the Mummy, and what is his motive? Then, not long after the Mummy’s nocturnal wanderings begin, Evelyn’s cousin Lucas shows up and renews his attentions to her. He joins the group in their attempts to catch the Mummy, who always manages to elude them.
After several adventures, including the kidnapping of Evelyn, a snake in Amelia’s tent, and an accidental (or was it?) shooting, the Mummy is apprehended. I don’t consider it a spoiler to say that Amelia and Emerson, after much delightful bickering, fall in love and get married, since they are a married couple through the rest of the series. Walter and Evelyn, of course, get married as well.
Elizabeth Peters originally intended Crocodile on the Sandbank to be a standalone mystery, but she couldn’t resist coming back to the character of Amelia and decided to write a series. The next book, Curse of the Pharaohs, was published six years later, in 1981. It introduces one of my favorite characters, Amelia and Emerson’s precocious son, Ramses. The six-year gap between the first and second books does lead to some inconsistencies, though. Amelia is tall in Crocodile on the Sandbank, but short in the other books. Peters had forgotten she had made Amelia tall originally.
The inconsistencies can be explained away, though, by Amelia being an unreliable narrator. But that is one of the things that makes her so delightful. She is supremely self-confident, and we wonder if she exaggerates her own abilities. Amelia can be blind to her own feelings, too. During the events of Crocodile on the Sandbank, everyone knows she is developing feelings for Emerson, except herself, and when he kisses her, it comes as a surprise to no one except her. The series takes place over many years. Chronologically, it goes up to the discovery of King Tut’s tomb in the 1920s. Amelia and Emerson are still quite physically active then, and another of the delights of Amelia’s unreliable narration is that she makes it seem as if she and Emerson are quite a bit younger than they actually are. A few of the later books don’t follow the chronological sequence. They were published after the King Tut book, but take place earlier.
There are 20 books in all in the Amelia Peabody series, including the last one, The Painted Queen, which Peters left unfinished at the time of her death in 2013 and which was finished by her friend, the mystery writer Joan Hess, who died not long after its publication. I admit that I have not yet read that one, even though I’m a big fan of all the others. Some say it is not well written, and even those who enjoyed it said it doesn’t read like the others. Stick with Peters’ originals, and you will experience wonderful adventures in Egypt with that delightful couple, Amelia and Emerson. The two leading characters are definitely part of a long literary tradition of the couple who dislike each other at first, then gradually fall in love. Think of Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing or Elizabeth and Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. And, as in those works, there is a secondary couple, Evelyn and Walter in this case, who fall in love immediately but whose love is threatened by misunderstandings (think of Hero and Claudio, or Jane and Bingley).
The Amelia Peabody series also influenced later mystery authors, including Tasha Alexander, Deanna Raybourn, and one of my current favorites, Erica Ruth Neubauer, whose first mystery takes place in 1920s Egypt and also features a strong-willed couple who fall in love despite their early dislike of each other. I highly recommend all the Amelia Peabody books (except, as I said, The Painted Queen, which I haven’t been able to bring myself to read). It’s best to read them in order, but whether you read them in publication order or chronological order is up to you. I also enjoy Elizabeth Peters’ other series very much. The Vicky Bliss series features an art historian and her love interest, a gentleman thief, and has ties to the Amelia Peabody books. The Jacqueline Kirby series has a librarian as the heroine. She carries a large purse which is just as much a part of her character as Amelia’s parasol is of hers. Elizabeth Peters also wrote several standalone mysteries and, under the pseudonym Barbara Michaels, many gothic and romantic suspense novels. Under her real name, Barbara Mertz, she wrote several nonfiction books on ancient Egypt. I have not read everything she wrote (she was very prolific), but I don’t remember ever disliking one of her books. The Amelia books are definitely my favorites, though.
Crocodile on the Sandbank is available from the Shapiro Undergraduate Library.