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anntharai's review against another edition
4.0
Caper is right. A good bit of fun, quite silly at points.
bookbrig's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
2.25
This has a unicorn on the cover, so I perhaps set my expectations for enjoyment too high. The opening few chapters did a wonderful job of getting me hooked on the story, I just didn't really like any of it from there on. It's a fine and relatively quick read, but I don't care for this author's heroines very much, so I think I won't try another one of hers for a while.
catsbah's review against another edition
3.0
I enjoyed the clever dialogue and the unusual 'being chased by bad guys' scenes. I didn't guess the ending and thought it was fun. I would prefer her Amelia Peabody series characters over these ones, but still entertaining.
hollie313's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.0
catherine_t's review against another edition
2.0
Jessica is in England, at the request of her estranged grandfather. But from the moment her ship arrived in Southampton, strange things have been happening. Someone tried to take her suitcase while she was waiting for a taxi. Then the same man cornered her in the chapter house of Salisbury Cathedral. She escaped him and hopped on a bus, without any idea of where it was going. Fortunately, she met with David Randall in a pub when she got off the bus in a small village. He offers to drive her to London. She takes him up on it, because to be honest, she doesn't have any choice.
Lucky for her, David is a writer of Gothic thrillers. And if anything, her life is suddenly beginning to resemble such a fiction...
I enjoy Peters' Amelia Peabody mysteries. This book--I'm not sure if it's part of a series or a stand-alone, though I suspect the latter--is not as good as those. I was never sure if it was meant as a parody of Gothic thrillers (Peters name-checks Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey) or a serious attempt at one. I found the romantic sub-plot utterly predictable, but perhaps it was meant to be. In any case, I didn't enjoy this book as much as some of her others.
Lucky for her, David is a writer of Gothic thrillers. And if anything, her life is suddenly beginning to resemble such a fiction...
I enjoy Peters' Amelia Peabody mysteries. This book--I'm not sure if it's part of a series or a stand-alone, though I suspect the latter--is not as good as those. I was never sure if it was meant as a parody of Gothic thrillers (Peters name-checks Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey) or a serious attempt at one. I found the romantic sub-plot utterly predictable, but perhaps it was meant to be. In any case, I didn't enjoy this book as much as some of her others.
writerlibrarian's review against another edition
2.0
A mad dash romp along the English country side from Salisbury, to Glastonbury, to Bath and finishing on the Cornish coast. It's a light read and almost a parody of all the romantic, damsel in distress, bodice ripper romance novels. Jessica Tregarth came to England to return a ring to a grand father she has never met. She steps into an elaborate scheme of fraud, chases and buried treasures, meeting along the way dashing if somewhat nose challenged writer (of said bodice ripper romance novels). I read it in one sitting took a few hours. It's an enjoyable but very light read. I guessed "Cousin John" is the John I will encounter in the Vicki Bliss novels.
morgandhu's review against another edition
3.0
Elizabeth Peters' early standalone novel, the Camelot Caper, attracted me with its promise of an Arthurian theme. While there was just enough of Arthur to satisfy me, I was quite delighted to discover that this novel was very reminiscent in tone, plot and characterisation of one of my favourite childhood authors, Mary Stewart.
This novel, like many of Stewart's, is a sort of romantic suspense adventure built around a female protagonist who is neither weak nor stupid, although occasionally young and a touch naive. I'm not sure if anyone writes these any more - an everywoman who confronts some kind of unexpected danger, and who finds along the way a romance with a man who is not so much a saviour as a partner, who shares the mystery and the danger, but needs as much help as he gives. Wikipedia describes Stewart as "... a British novelist who developed the romantic mystery genre, featuring smart, adventurous heroines who could hold their own in dangerous situations." And that's very much the genre that The Camelot Caper falls into.
The protagonist is a young American woman, Jessica Tregarth, visiting Britain for the first time at the behest of a dying grandfather. Her own father, who died when she was young, had been long estranged from his family, but had kept a family heirloom, a not very valuable man's ring, which Jessica's grandfather had asked her to bring with her.
The mystery begins when Jessica realises that someone else wants to get the ring before she can take it to her grandfather, and seems prepared to go to some lengths to get it. Fleeing from the two men pursuing her, she meets David, a writer of romantic mysteries, who at first thinks her story is part of a practical joke cooked up by his friends, but who is soon drawn into the mystery and offers his help in getting her safely to her grandfather in Cornwall.
The Arthurian connection comes in through the belief of the grandfather that their family is descended from a bastard son of Arthur's. His conviction that there are remnants of an Arthurian fortress, perhaps Camelot itself, on the family land has nearly bankrupted the family with repeated archeological excavations.
Along the twisty path to Cornwall, Peters also treats us to visits to a number of historical churches, and of course a stop at Glastonbury, as Jessica and David chase, and are chased in turn - and captured on several occasions - by the two mysterious men.
There are no red herrings here - the resolution of the mystery is directly connected to the ring, the excavations, the bankruptcy and the ancient legend, in a satisfying way. The romance is handled lightly, growing slowly as Jessica and David manage to figure out the connections, escape their captors, and set things right.
In The Camelot Caper, Peters has written a fine example of a possibly dated but nonetheless enjoyable genre.
This novel, like many of Stewart's, is a sort of romantic suspense adventure built around a female protagonist who is neither weak nor stupid, although occasionally young and a touch naive. I'm not sure if anyone writes these any more - an everywoman who confronts some kind of unexpected danger, and who finds along the way a romance with a man who is not so much a saviour as a partner, who shares the mystery and the danger, but needs as much help as he gives. Wikipedia describes Stewart as "... a British novelist who developed the romantic mystery genre, featuring smart, adventurous heroines who could hold their own in dangerous situations." And that's very much the genre that The Camelot Caper falls into.
The protagonist is a young American woman, Jessica Tregarth, visiting Britain for the first time at the behest of a dying grandfather. Her own father, who died when she was young, had been long estranged from his family, but had kept a family heirloom, a not very valuable man's ring, which Jessica's grandfather had asked her to bring with her.
The mystery begins when Jessica realises that someone else wants to get the ring before she can take it to her grandfather, and seems prepared to go to some lengths to get it. Fleeing from the two men pursuing her, she meets David, a writer of romantic mysteries, who at first thinks her story is part of a practical joke cooked up by his friends, but who is soon drawn into the mystery and offers his help in getting her safely to her grandfather in Cornwall.
The Arthurian connection comes in through the belief of the grandfather that their family is descended from a bastard son of Arthur's. His conviction that there are remnants of an Arthurian fortress, perhaps Camelot itself, on the family land has nearly bankrupted the family with repeated archeological excavations.
Along the twisty path to Cornwall, Peters also treats us to visits to a number of historical churches, and of course a stop at Glastonbury, as Jessica and David chase, and are chased in turn - and captured on several occasions - by the two mysterious men.
There are no red herrings here - the resolution of the mystery is directly connected to the ring, the excavations, the bankruptcy and the ancient legend, in a satisfying way. The romance is handled lightly, growing slowly as Jessica and David manage to figure out the connections, escape their captors, and set things right.
In The Camelot Caper, Peters has written a fine example of a possibly dated but nonetheless enjoyable genre.
smcleish's review against another edition
4.0
Originally published on my blog here in October 2000.
From the title, it would perhaps be reasonable to assume that this early Elizabeth Peters' novel is one of her silliest, but in fact it is a fairly straightfaced thriller. Jessica Tregarth has come to England on her grandfather's invitation, but is alarmed to find herself being followed around tourist spots like Salisbury Cathedral and having her luggage searched, to the point of hiding on a local bus (where the most amusing scene of the novel occurs, in whhich respectable villagers conceal her and lie inventively to the "gangsters" chasing her).
The plot is typical of the thrillers of the style perhaps best exemplified by [a:Mary Stewart|15590|Mary Stewart|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1210367214p2/15590.jpg] - though to a certain extent it is satirising poorer examples of this subgenre. The Camelot Caper has signs of parody - the way that successive scenes work their way through most of the best known tourist sites in South West England, for example, but it is really more lighthearted than uproarious. An enjoyable feature of the novel is the vacillation of the heroine between terror and the feeling that she is making something out of nothing, like in [b:Northanger Abbey|50398|Northanger Abbey|Jane Austen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328753190s/50398.jpg|4039699] (a parallel she quotes).
From the title, it would perhaps be reasonable to assume that this early Elizabeth Peters' novel is one of her silliest, but in fact it is a fairly straightfaced thriller. Jessica Tregarth has come to England on her grandfather's invitation, but is alarmed to find herself being followed around tourist spots like Salisbury Cathedral and having her luggage searched, to the point of hiding on a local bus (where the most amusing scene of the novel occurs, in whhich respectable villagers conceal her and lie inventively to the "gangsters" chasing her).
The plot is typical of the thrillers of the style perhaps best exemplified by [a:Mary Stewart|15590|Mary Stewart|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1210367214p2/15590.jpg] - though to a certain extent it is satirising poorer examples of this subgenre. The Camelot Caper has signs of parody - the way that successive scenes work their way through most of the best known tourist sites in South West England, for example, but it is really more lighthearted than uproarious. An enjoyable feature of the novel is the vacillation of the heroine between terror and the feeling that she is making something out of nothing, like in [b:Northanger Abbey|50398|Northanger Abbey|Jane Austen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328753190s/50398.jpg|4039699] (a parallel she quotes).