A review by vkemp
The Painted Queen by Joan Hess, Elizabeth Peters

2.0

Amelia Peabody and her husband, Emerson, are back in Egypt for a another season of excavation. Amelia is almost killed in her bath at Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo and she is saved by Sethos, the master criminal, who has a tendresse for Amelia. It becomes apparent the five brothers of the man Nefret married, who then died, bear an animus towards Amelia and her son, Ramses. Meanwhile, Emerson discovers a spectacular bust of Nefertiti, which inexplicably disappears, only to re-appear in the shop of a master forger in Cairo. Lots of loose threads running around throughout this book. It is obvious Joan Hess faced an uphill battle to re-create the Amelia and Emerson we all loved from the unfinished manuscript left when Barbara Mertz died.