Another Egyptian Mystery

The information hasn't made it onto this blog, but many of my readers will know that I am a sucker for Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody mysteries. Peabody is a sassy archeologist in turn-of-the-(20th)century Egypt, and the matriarch of a menagerie of humans and cats. (She is also the mother of Ramses, who over the course of the series proceeds from precocious pest to broodingly romantic hero and a personal favorite fictional character.)

But I digress, as this post is actually about my Maine trip reading, Arthur Phillips' The Archeologist. Set mostly in 1922, the novel is concerned with a young archeologist, Ralph Trilipush, and his drive to discover the tomb of the mysterious early king (not Pharoah, we are instructed) and erotic poet Atum-hadu. The narrative is formed of Trilipush's journal and correspondence from Egypt back to Boston, where his funders and fiancee await, as well as letters from Mr. Ferrell, written three decades later, to the fiancee's nephew, about how he, an Australian private investigator, found himself intangled in the Trilipush case. Which, we eventually find, is filled with intrigue, murder, pretense, and a search for a king that may or may not exist.

I would stretch to make any but the most general comparisons between Phillips work and Peters' series. [On second thought, I am finding more similarities.] Peters has a doctorate in Egyptology, which grounds her works in serious scholarship, but is also aware that she is writing swashbuckling romantic mysteries at the same time. Phillips, googling reveals, was inspired by a scrap of letter to base a novel on the unfamilar topic of Egyptology. (One thing both authors do is integrate famous archeologists such as Howard Carter, discoverer of King Tut's tomb, into their work.)

Phillips' characters are enigmas, appearing through their own or others' writing. And everyone has good reason to misrepresent him or herself. Thus the reader must determine how much to trust, and which lines to read between. This can get tiresome, and I imagine some readers will put the book down rather than do so. However, it does make for an entertaining psychological mystery. To say more would reveal too much.

I was a big fan of Phillips' 2002 novel, Prague (set in Budapest, of course). Only mixed reviews kept me away from his follow-up until now. After reading both, I can say that is a more ambitious novel, but that The ArcheologistPrague is the more satisfying and successful.