The Last Camel Died at Noon - Elizabeth Peters [0]
“Guaranteed entertainment.”
—Milwaukee Journal
“A delightful romp… one of the best outings in the Peabody series.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Fans will be in heaven.… Nineteenth-century Egyptologist Amelia Peabody is wonderfully, gloriously, magnificently back.”
—Drood Review of Mystery
“Her wonderfully witty voice and her penchant for history lessons of the Nile both ancient and modern keep [her] high adventure moving for even the highest brows.… If the reader is tempted to draw another obvious comparison between Amelia Peabody and Indiana Jones, it’s Amelia—in wit and daring—by a landslide.”
—Peter Theroux
“THE LAST CAMEL DIED AT NOON has everything: a tricky, beautifully plotted mystery; rollicking, old-fashioned (in the best sense of the word) adventure; romance; and the doughtiest, smartest, most appealing female protagonist in mystery fiction.”
—Aaron Elkins, Edgar Award-winning author of Old Bones
“THE LAST CAMEL DIED AT NOON is classic Peabody.… You don’t have to read any of the other books in the series to enjoy CAMEL—but it will make you want to read them all.”
—Orlando Sentinel
“Fun… H. Rider Haggard with a lightness of touch.”
—Denver Rocky Mountain News
“A fast-paced gallop… delightfully informative and spellbinding.”
—Newport News Daily Press
“Well written, fast reading.… What happens? Buy the novel and find out.”
—Morse Press-News
“Fun and entertaining… Elizabeth Peters doesn’t disappoint.”
—Indianapolis News
“Delightful and hilarious.”
—Locus
“You’ll laugh out loud as the plot thickens and the handmaidens unveil.”
—Baton Rouge Sunday Advocate
“A delightful romp.”
—West Coast Review of Books
“A good mystery with more twists than the Nile… adventure that wraps up as tidily as King Whatsisname’s mummy.”
—Flint Journal
“Yet another delightful saga of this Victorianera heroine… erudite, witty froth laced with irony.”
—Florida Times-Union
“A writer so popular that the public library has to keep her books under lock and key.”
—Washington Post Book World
BOOKS BY ELIZABETH PETERS
Crocodile on the Sandbank
The Curse of the Pharaohs
The Hippopotamus Pool
The Last Camel Died at Noon
The Mummy Case
The Murders of Richard III
Naked Once More
Night Train to Memphis
Seeing a Large Cat
The Seventh Sinner
Silhouette in Scarlet
The Snake, The Crocodile and the Dog
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 1991 by Elizabeth Peters
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Illustrations on pages 83, 312, and 367 are reprinted from The Egyptian Sudan: Its History and Monuments, vol. I. by Ernest Wallace Budge. Copyright © 1907. (London: Kegan, Paul, Trends, Trübner and Co.)
Grand Central Publishing
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First eBook Edition: February 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-57322-1
Contents
GREAT ACCLAIM FOR ELIZABETH PETERS AND THE LAST CAMEL DIED AT NOON
BOOKS BY ELIZABETH PETERS
Copyright
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
BOOK ONE
CHAPTER 1: “I Told You This Was a Harebrained Scheme!”
CHAPTER 2: “My Son Lives!”
CHAPTER 3: “He Promised All the Ladies Many Sons”
CHAPTER 4: Stone Houses of the Kings
CHAPTER 5: “He Is the Man!”
CHAPTER 6: The Ghost of a Bowman of Cush
CHAPTER 7: Lost in the Sea of Sand
BOOK TWO
CHAPTER 8: The City of the Holy Mountain
CHAPTER 9: “Touch This Mother at Your Peril!”
CHAPTER 10: Assaulted at Midnight!
CHAPTER 11: “Another Pair of Confounded Young Lovers!”
CHAPTER 12: “When I Speak the Dead Hear and Obey!”
CHAPTER 13: