elizabeth peters is yen's newest contribution to my wellbeing. early in september she arrived at my doorstep bearing four of them to comfort the sick, but i had put them aside then, for much as i trust yen's reading, in the way su-lin talked about on her blog, the blurb was not promising to me, and verges on the sensational. besides, i used my home-confinement to catch up with everybody else's childhood reading: earthsea and the hitchhikers guide, so victorian egyptologist-detectives had to stand aside. i have to say that they are some of the most boliao all-day fun i've had in a bit, and additionally there is the joy of knowing, as with pratchetts and christies and sayerses when i first started, that there are still so many other books in the series to keep me entertained for a week to come!