‘You ought not have cursed Lord Carnarvon, Emerson.’
‘Bah’, said Emerson. ‘He was already out of temper with me.’
‘You threatened him with everything from dying of the pox to being devoured by demons in the afterlife.’ [p. 174]
The final novel, chronologically, in the Amelia Peabody series, Tomb of the Golden Bird follows directly from The Serpent on the Crown, and deals with the discovery and excavation of Tutankhamon's tomb in 1922. Peters does a good job of fictionalising the historical excavation, with misbehaviour on the parts of Carnarvon and Carter (rumoured to have broken the terms of their permit) and a very credible reason for excluding Amelia and her family from the site (Emerson's fury at their slapdash methods and general arrogance).
The entire Peabody-Emerson clan is assembled here, including Sethos; Ramses and Nefret and their dear little children; David and Lia, out from England and trying not to get entangled in newly-independent Egypt's politics ... and of course Amelia and Emerson, both older and (arguably) wiser but no less passionate about Egypt, about archaeology and about each other. There is a mystery of sorts, but one does get the feeling that Peters was bidding a fond farewell to her characters and her setting. (Two novels were published after this: A River in the Sky, set in Palestine in 1910, and The Painted Queen, set in Egypt in 1912 and completed by Joan Hess after Peters' death. I don't feel the series would be diminished without them.) There are some charming family vignettes, some moderate excitement, and a definite sense of loose ends being tied off: a fitting candidate for the last novel of the year.
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