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A review by amandawillimott
The Painted Queen by Elizabeth Peters, Joan Hess
2.0
After Elizabeth Peters passed away, Joan Hess took over The Painted Queen. This Amelia Peabody adventure takes us back to 1912 during a season in Amarna where Amelia takes on a family of assassins while the family searches for the missing bust of Nefertiti and it’s many forgeries.
It’s sad that this is the last Amelia Peabody story because it’s sorely lacking in almost everything that made the series so special. The characters are flat versions of themselves, displaying few of the quirks we have come to love about them, and introducing new quirks instead - since when was Amelia so obsessed with food? Emerson is hardly present, his bold and overbearing personality reduced to a few statements. Nefret could easily have been replaced by a table lamp. And as for Ramses and David, they were indistinguishable.
At times I found the story hard to follow because a character would make a dramatic exclamation and it was followed by little to no explanation of anything dramatic. The whole book was fragmented and lacked the joy of the previous books.
It’s sad that this is the last Amelia Peabody story because it’s sorely lacking in almost everything that made the series so special. The characters are flat versions of themselves, displaying few of the quirks we have come to love about them, and introducing new quirks instead - since when was Amelia so obsessed with food? Emerson is hardly present, his bold and overbearing personality reduced to a few statements. Nefret could easily have been replaced by a table lamp. And as for Ramses and David, they were indistinguishable.
At times I found the story hard to follow because a character would make a dramatic exclamation and it was followed by little to no explanation of anything dramatic. The whole book was fragmented and lacked the joy of the previous books.