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A review by emsee33
The Painted Queen by Elizabeth Peters, Joan Hess
3.0
THE PAINTED QUEEN by Elizabeth Peters and Joan Hess (begun by Peters and finished by Hess after the former passed away) can best be described as 'perfunctory.' It's a perfectly acceptable mystery, if bordering on the absurd, but it simply isn't an Amelia Peabody mystery. While the forward and introductions make it clear that completing this manuscript was a labor of love on the part of Hess to honor her late friend's memory and talent, the result isn't all that successful.
Elizabeth Peters (aka Barbara Mertz) was not the world's greatest writer, but I adored her and read everything she ever wrote under that pseudonym. Some of her books are better than others, and many of the later books in the Amelia Peabody series are uneven (and occasionally, poorly edited), but she had wit, a joy for the subject, and a clear voice that Hess failed to capture. How much of THE PAINTED QUEEN is Peters and how much is Hess is unknown, but every page read like it was just slightly off-center. The painting was more or less complete, but the details were absent.
The main cast of characters spoke in ways that felt forced or inaccurate, and the narrative lacked any sort of emotional reflection, particularly jarring as this book is supposed to take place between two of the most dramatic stories in the series - THE FALCON AT THE PORTAL and HE SHALL THUNDER IN THE SKY. While references are made to events in the former, the emotional fallout is barely touched, and not one mention is made of Sennia, the little Egyptian girl whose appearance in FALCON turned everyone's lives upside down. I found the Manuscript H sections particularly disappointing.
Ultimately, this novel is unnecessary. Though Peters started filling in gaps from earlier points in the series while she was still alive, the journey that her readers took all the way to TOMB OF THE GOLDEN BIRD had a perfectly satisfying ending for the Emersons, and as Amelia might say, there's simply no need to go backwards.
Elizabeth Peters (aka Barbara Mertz) was not the world's greatest writer, but I adored her and read everything she ever wrote under that pseudonym. Some of her books are better than others, and many of the later books in the Amelia Peabody series are uneven (and occasionally, poorly edited), but she had wit, a joy for the subject, and a clear voice that Hess failed to capture. How much of THE PAINTED QUEEN is Peters and how much is Hess is unknown, but every page read like it was just slightly off-center. The painting was more or less complete, but the details were absent.
The main cast of characters spoke in ways that felt forced or inaccurate, and the narrative lacked any sort of emotional reflection, particularly jarring as this book is supposed to take place between two of the most dramatic stories in the series - THE FALCON AT THE PORTAL and HE SHALL THUNDER IN THE SKY. While references are made to events in the former, the emotional fallout is barely touched, and not one mention is made of Sennia, the little Egyptian girl whose appearance in FALCON turned everyone's lives upside down. I found the Manuscript H sections particularly disappointing.
Ultimately, this novel is unnecessary. Though Peters started filling in gaps from earlier points in the series while she was still alive, the journey that her readers took all the way to TOMB OF THE GOLDEN BIRD had a perfectly satisfying ending for the Emersons, and as Amelia might say, there's simply no need to go backwards.