Amelia Peabody's Murder Mystery Omnibus(2012)

Elizabeth Peters

Amelia Peabody is Elizabeth Peters' most brilliant and best-loved creation, a thoroughly Victorian feminist who takes the stuffy world of archaeology by storm with her devastatingly handsome, brilliant archaeologist husband Radcliffe Emerson and their precocious son Ramses.

Book 1 - Crocodile on the Sandbank
In the first adventure - set in 1884 - 32-year-old Amelia, a self-proclaimed spinster, decides to use her substantial inheritance to indulge her passion, Egyptology. On her travels, she rescues a gentlewoman in distress - Evelyn Barton-Forbes - and the two become friends. The two companions continue to Egypt where they face mysteries, mummies and the redoubtable Radcliffe Emerson, an outspoken archaeologist, who doesn't need women to help him solve mysteries -- at least that's what he thinks!

Book 2 - The Curse of the Pharoahs
Set in 1892. Amelia and Emerson, who is now her husband, are back in England raising their young son Ramses, when they are approached by a damsel in distress. Lady Baskerville's husband, Sir Henry, has died after uncovering what may have been royal tomb in Luxor. Amid rumors of a curse haunting all those involved with the dig, Amelia and Emerson proceed to Egypt and begin to suspect that Sir Henry did not die a natural death. The accidents plaguing the dig appear to be caused by a sinister human element, not a pharaoh's curse.

Book 3 - The Mummy Case
Amelia and Emerson bring their young son Ramses along to Egypt in 1894. Emerson is living up to his reputation as 'The Father of Curses'. Denied permission to dig at the pyramids of Dahshoor, he is awarded instead the 'pyramids' of Mazghunah - countless mounds of rubble in the middle of nowhere. Nothing in this barren spot seems of any interest but then a murder in Cairo changes all of that. The dead man was an antiques dealer, killed in his shop, so when a sinister-looking Egyptian spotted at the crime scene turns up in Mazghunah, Amelia can't resist following his trail. At the same time she has to keep an eagle eye on her wayward son Rameses and his elegant, calculating cat, and look into the mysterious disappearance of a mummy case...

Book 4 - Lion in the Valley
In 1895, the much-coveted burial chamber of the Black Pyramid in Dahshoor is theirs for the digging. But there is great evil in the wind that roils the hot sands sweeping through the streets and marketplaces of Cairo. The brazen moonlit abduction of Ramses alerts Amelia to the presence of her arch-enemy, the Master Criminal. And his is now a personal quest for the most valuable and elusive prize of all: Vengeance on the meddling lady archaeologist who has sworn to deliver him to justice...