The Missing Mummies (Jesperson and Lane, 3)
London in the summer of 1894. Jasper Jesperson and Aphrodite Lane return for their third adventure, after a publishing hiatus of six years. The pair are requested to investigate the apparent theft from the storeroom of the British Museum of various ancient Egyptian artifacts. They subsequently get involved in a murder, the esoteric and cranky world of Egyptology, and the adherents’ belief in the peculiar mystic qualities of that ancient civilization. The story creeps into the paranormal with the evils of demonic possession.
There is more than a touch of Holmes and Watson about this pair. Not only is the scene late Victorian London, but Jesperson is the eccentric and brilliant private detective, with Lane acting as both the memoirist of their adventures and a faithful and occasionally valuable assistant. The narrative is interesting and well-written, and the story zips along with pleasurable verve, but the characters occasionally seem to behave in ways that stretch credibility both for the conventions of the time as well as normal British human behaviour; they just do not seem quite right somehow. Nonetheless, this is a thoroughly enjoyable story, set effectively in its milieu.
