Review of CHILDREN OF THE STORM by Elizabeth Peters (see her website)

William Morrow, 2003

The great war is over, but Egypt remains uneasy as peace begins to make its way into the nation. Peace and jewel thiefs--a former associate of Sethos vanishes along with priceless Egyptian jewelery and Amelia Peabody and her entire clan are quick to get into the act. What follows is a fairly long drawn-out series of misfortunes (their boat sinks, their car crashes, a bug threatens the children, a boogie-man appears at the bedroom window, Sethos's long-vanished daughter appears and is assailed. Somehow, Amelia has to make sense of the entire mess. The problem is, this time, she doesn't seem to be the target. Her usual strategy of letting the antagonists capture her won't work this time.

Author Elizabeth Peters (see more BooksForABuck.com reviews of mysteries by Peters) concludes CHILDREN OF THE STORM with a hundred pages of action, suspense, and emotional impact. Without the background of the great war that played such a key role in her recent novels, Peters turns to family details to fill up the remainder of the pages. We all enjoy hearing how much Amelia appreciates Emerson's manly, uh, manliness, but perhaps Peters goes a little overboard. Of course, their son Ramses is hardly less manly--which causes problems given that he's married now and all the women still want him.

Fans of Elizabeth Peters (like me) will enjoy this story and even enjoy most of the family details. Seeing Emerson and his two brothers working together for a change is somehow satisfying. On the downside, Peters doesn't give quite the dose of archeology that I am used to and I found missing it. Also, although all of the Amelia Peabody stories are a little over the top, the 'plan' that the criminals are working on this time seems more than a little off. Surely they wouldn't rationally do everything they do here--essentially inviting Amelia and family to investigate them--if their motivation is as described. CHILDREN OF THE STORM is definitely not the book to acquaint new readers with the Elizabeth Peters universe.

Two Stars

Reviewed 6/16/03

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