Elizabeth Peters · 1975 · mediterranean

Elizabeth Peters's 1975 mystery, the first of the Amelia Peabody novels. A wealthy, strong-minded Victorian Englishwoman sets off in 1884 to see the antiquities she has only read about. Passing through Rome she rescues a destitute young woman, Evelyn, and takes her on to Egypt, where they sail up the Nile to an excavation at Amarna, fall in with the irascible archaeologist Emerson, and find themselves stalked by a walking mummy. The route runs from England across the Mediterranean and up the Nile.

1. 1
   London

   Newly an heiress and determined never to marry, Amelia Peabody leaves England to see the ancient places she and her late father had only studied.

2. 2
   Rome

   In Rome she rescues Evelyn Barton-Forbes, abandoned and penniless, and engages her as a companion for the journey east.

3. 3
   Alexandria

   Their steamer from Italy docks at Alexandria, Egypt's Mediterranean gateway, and from the harbour they take the railway south to Cairo.

4. 4
   Cairo

   In Cairo they take rooms at Shepheard's Hotel, marvel at the pyramids of Giza, and hire a dahabeeyah to carry them up the river.

5. 5
   Amarna

   They sail up the Nile to the ruins of Amarna, Akhenaten's lost capital, where the Emerson brothers are digging and a moonlit mummy soon begins to stalk them.