Elizabeth Peters
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10
Average rating: 4.5 of 5
See Rome and die 4 out of 5 stars.
26 of 26 people found this review helpful.
Barbara Mertz, also known as Elizabeth Peters, also known as Barbara Michaels has written nonfiction Egyptology books under her own name. As Elizabeth Peters, she is the author of many mysteries, including series starring Amelia Peabody, Vicky Bliss, and Jacqueline Kirby. As Barbara Michaels she has written 29 gothic suspense novels."The Seventh Sinner" is one of Elizabeth Peters's Jacqueline Kirby mysteries, told in the 3rd person by Jean Suttman who is in Rome on an archeological fellowship, and who literally runs down Jacqueline Kirby in a library. Almost as soon as Jean makes friends with Jacqueline, the younger woman witnesses the last few moments of a murder victim, and becomes the next target for the murderer.
Other novels in the Jacqueline Kirby series are "Murders of Richard III," "Die for Love," and "Naked Once More." Truthfully---and I know I must belong to a small minority---I like the Jacqueline Kirby books better than those starring Amelia Peabody, which tend to run on a single, dusty Egyptian track. Far better to be in Rome in the spring, even though Jean and Jacqueline are underground in various catacombs too much of the time. At least, they didn't have to spend any subsurface hours in the Cloaca Maximus, which still carries somewhere around one million cubic meters of waste per day.
Anyway, this book is more focused on the early Christians, rather than the pagan Romans. There are some fascinating archeological inquiries into the burial sites of Saints Peter and Paul, and of course there is the brooding, claustrophobic atmosphere of underground Rome itself---an important part of this mystery.
'Sinner' moves right along and there's no point in warning the heroine to stay out of the catacombs. That's where the final clue to the murder might be found, and Jean is going to find it or die trying.
There is the usual, stylish Peters 'humoresque' decorating this mystery---Lots of snappy dialogue and interesting characters to entertain her dedicated readers who may not be all that interested in early Christian archeology.
Editorial Review:
At first, Jean Suttman thought she had died and gone to Heaven when she was granted the opportunity to study in Rome. But the body that's lying in the ancient subterranean Temple of Mithra—the murdered corpse of a repulsive and disliked fellow student—isn't her idea of heavenly. Now she is truly frightened, not just because small "accidents" seem to be occurring around her with disturbing regularity. It's the ever-increasing certainty that someone, for some unknown reason, is ruthlessly determined to do her harm. Jean's innocent underground excursion into a sacred pagan place has trapped her in something dark and terrifying, and even the knowledge that practical, perceptive fellow American Jacqueline Kirby is on the case won't ease her fears. Because there's only so far Jean Suttman can run . . . and no escape for her except death.
