Crocodile on the Sandbank

The Amelia Peabody Series, Book 1

By: Elizabeth Peters

Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat

Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

Amelia Peabody inherited two things from her father: a considerable fortune and an unbendable will. The first allowed her to indulge in her life's passion. Without the second, the mummy's curse would have made corpses of them all.

Don't miss the rest of the Amelia Peabody series. You can also check out more of our Most Addictive Series.

©2004 Elizabeth Peters (P)2004 Recorded Books

Utterly enjoyable

While this mystery definitely suffers from a predictable conclusion, that’s the only element that dates it and keeps me from giving a higher rating. Otherwise, the Victorian period with its indomitable protagonist has held up nicely, and I already have the next of the series on my cart.

Beginning the series

I have read some of Elizabeth Oeters books in this series and wanted to go to the beginning. Now I have and am pleased that I did. The narrator, Barbara Rosenblat is the right person to narrate ! Love this series.

A Wonderful Escape

I enjoyed every minute of this book and highly recommend it to those interested in the time period and egyptology

Great book, great narrator

This is one of my favorite books, and series. The narration is perfect and makes the story even more enjoyable.

Splendid Story

Straight out of The 40 Thieves of Baghdad - enough thrill, common sense, and good old British dialog to make all adventure seekers happy.

Alchemy

this recording is the perfect alchemy of story, performance, and technology. i cannot wait to dig into the rest of this delightful series!!

Amelia & Barbara are Wonderful

I listened to this entire series a year ago and just listened to all 18 books again. The charecters are eccentric and endearing. The setting in Egypt is interesting and the mysteries are fun. If you enjoy mysteries, romance and continuing charecters, some of whom develop as the story unfolds you will enjoy these stories.
Read them in order beginning with this book.
Barbara Rosenblat is an absolutely amazing narrator. She does a magnificant job capturing a variety of voices; male and female from child to senior as well as Egyptian, British and American accents. Hope you enjoy Amelia and her family as much as I did.

A Victorian Adventure, 100 Years Later

Elizabeth Peters draws together a variety of influences to produce a somewhat Victorian, somewhat adventure-y caper novel that owes to Jane Austen, Arthur Conan Doyle, and pulp romantic adventure writers all at the same time. And it takes its flavor from its unflinching portrayal of the experience a strong-willed woman of means as she wanders through a cultural milieu whose customs are misogynistic in creepy, persuasive, and insidious ways.

The protagonist's poor regard for men has been the grounds for some criticism of Peters' Ameilia Peabody series in the past, but just speaking as one male listener I found the whole book amusing and entertaining, if not quite as fast-paced in plot as an adventure piece not imbricated with so many other novelistic strands. In the end, I kind of like Amelia, though I know she would despise me because I can wear pants whenever I want.

In fact, I probably like her well enough to join her for the _Curse of the Pharoahs_, the next book in the series. Given that it's read by Barbara Rosenblatt, it seems that you can count on an enjoyable number of hours sprinkled in with acerbic comments about men and gender roles and frequently entertaining dialog.

I was more entertained by the first book than I would have predicted, given that it's 30 years old and is rather demeaning to those of us with y-chromosomes. Perhaps I have a high tolerance for that sort of thing, but I think Rosenblatt's channelling of Amelia can be awfully entertaining. I'll be curious to see if the next book has a tighter plot and even more of the enjoyable chemistry between the principal characters.

Good, solid first in series

I got this book on sale a while back and just got around to listening to it. I am not a huge fan of books set in the past but there was something about this book. . . Amelia Peabody is a lot like Gail Carriger's Alexia Tarabotti. This is not like the Tarabotti books. Not steampunk. No werewolves or vampires to be found. However, the heroines in both series are so much alike that one can't help but draw parallels. The recording is old and at one point you can hear A LOT of background noises (they eventually go away). It's not awful, but it does take away from the story a bit- not so much that I won't listen to it again, just a little disconcerting. Rosenblat is awesomely dry and British sounding. I will be getting the next in the series for sure.

Fun Cozy

Oh we’ve come a long way baby!

Some of the sexist things that came out of Emerson’s mouth:

A woman with an inquiring mind is there such a thing!

Think, Peabody; if you have ever used your brain now is the time.”

“Speak, then. That is the trouble with women, even the best of them.” Emerson added. “They will indulge in vain cries of ‘if only’ and ‘had I known.’

Even though Emerson is at times an arrogant prig I couldn’t help giggling at some of the things he said and Amelia’s reaction to them. Also some of the times she really got him good like when his pocket was smoking that cracked me up. I enjoyed this cute cozy Amelia Peabody is so much fun and the ending cracked me up!

I read this for bookclub because we wanted something a little lighter this month and this one fit the bill perfectly, I think the discussion will come from my first line of this review, just how far women have come, and that showed in the mystery too I don’t think that exact same story could have been set in current times. Plus you get archaeology and Egyptology; mummy’s and murders this along with Amelia wit, Emerson’s gruffness makes the perfect combination for this fun cozy. I am looking forward to reading the rest of this series!


Barbara Rosenblat narrates this so perfectly, I have listened to her narrate all the Diana Mott Davidson books so who knew she could slip into this somewhat haughty English accent with such ease. What makes it even better is now I have no idea which accent is her “real” accent is she a Brit that can do a great American accent or is she an American who can superbly do a British accent? This just cements her spot on my favorite narrators list.

4 stars