The Painted Queen

Amelia Peabody is back for one final adventure, and it is beyond fabulous!

When Amelia and her husband head back to Egypt, she is shocked when a man drops dead in her bathroom. Not knowing why this person was trying to kill her, she and Emerson head on to their dig site, while trying to solve the mystery.
While there, they encounter their usual round of suspects, Sethos is back but in a much different role, and the Father of Curses still knows how to command an audience...

I had to read this in one sitting, it was a fabulous book, and I absolutely loved it!

While this book was not finished by Elizabeth Peters, due to her death, Joan Hess did a great job in completing the manuscript, and doing her best to follow the writing style of Ms. Peters. While I could detect subtle instances in where they differed, it was an enjoyable read, and I am greatly going to miss the escapades of the Emerson family.

This book in one word? Lazy.

I feel a bit conflicted saying that, since apparently Joan Hess was sick and near the end of her life when she took on Elizabeth Peters's unfinished manuscript. So maybe it wasn't laziness that she suffered from, but illness and distraction.

But that doesn't change the way the book turned out: completely out of place in the series, in an unfamiliar voice, and full of seemingly careless errors. I could list them but others have already done so.

Truthfully, maybe someone else should have taken over this manuscript, someone who had the health and energy to truly give it what it deserved and who had the time to reread the series beforehand. I understand how difficult it must have been for Hess, and I sympathize, but it doesn't change the final product. Why the editor did not catch the mistakes or clean it up is anybody's guess.

When I reread this series (and I plan to), I will skip over this one, as it really doesn't feel like canon and shoves a wrench between two of the most emotionally fraught books in the series.