Just Finished Reading A River in the Sky by Elizabeth Peters

Elizabeth Peters, I found out after discovering that the book I checked out of the library is part of the twenty-volume Amelia Peabody archaeology mystery series attributed to her, is the pseudonym of the late Barbara Mertz, described as an Egyptologist.  It's helpful, I guess, to write fiction that conveniently focuses on the very area in which you have specialized and already have a great deal of background knowledge...saves a bit on the research time and expense.  This series centers around the English Egyptologist couple of Amelia Peabody and her husband Radcliffe Emerson...the two always refer to one another as "Peabody" and "Emerson".  Although most of the stories naturally take place in Egypt...starting in the late nineteenth century and eventually progressing into World War I of the early twentieth...the book I read, A River in the Sky, transpires around 1910 with the setting first being England and then the Holy Land, more specifically Jerusalem and Samaria, then still a part of the Ottoman Empire.  There is great pre-war international intrigue going on between England, Germany, the Ottoman Turks, and other parties...including Arab and Jewish independence movements in the Middle East.  Peabody and Emerson find themselves pulled into the tempest as their son Ramses disappears in the area and they have their own task in pursuing another archaeologist who seems to be a German agent and who is digging for something that might possibly alter the balance of power.  What is this object and what happened to Ramses? There are other characters as well, including a couple of very smart villains, but you'd probably be better off reading this book for yourself and enjoying the flow of the story.  I learned a bit about early twentieth-century history in Palestine and laughed at wily, headstrong Peabody and cantankerous Emerson argue with each other and pretty much bully their way over everyone else unfortunate to be in their way.  These characters made me want to go back and start at the series from its beginning: I give it a big "thumbs up"...