Seeing a Large Cat (Amelia Peabody)

Elizabeth Peters's books about Egyptologist Amelia Peabody are like longer, more literate versions of those letters some relatives send to keep people up to date on their family adventures. They're also lively feminist spoofs on the two-fisted Victorian adventure novels that inspired the Indiana Jones films. In this ninth book in the Peabody series, it's 1903, and Amelia and her clan--irascible husband Emerson, fearless son Ramses, gorgeous ward Nefret--are in Cairo, dealing with everything from mummies (both the ancient and more recent varieties) to affairs of the heart. Previous Peabody paperbacks include The Hippopotamus Pool and The Snake, the Crocodile and the Dog.