Vicky Bliss

Jessica Tregarth goes to England to visit her grandfather; an invitation that surprises and pleases her. The only link she has with her dead father's family is an antique ring he brought with him to America. This will be a chance to learn more about who she is; it will be fun.

It began as a game, a treasure hunt in an old German castle. For Vicky Bliss, tall, beautiful, and brilliant, it is also a challenge, a chance to bring an arrogant young man down a notch or two. And all things considered, it would have been no contest.

A missing masterwork in wood, the last creation of a master carver who died in the violent tumult of the sixteenth century, may be hidden in a medieval German castle in the town of Rothenburg. The prize has called to art historian Vicky Bliss, drawing her and an arrogant male colleague into the forbidding citadel and its dark secrets. But the treasure hunt soon turns deadly. Here, where the blood of the long-forgotten damned stains ancient stones, Vicky must face two equally perilous possibilities.

Vicky gasped at the sight of the exquisite gold pendant her boss at Munich's National Museum held in his hand. The Charlemagne talisman replica, along with a note in hieroglyphs, was found sewn into the suit pocket of an unidentified man found dead in an alley. Vicky vows to find the master craftsman who created it. It's a daring chase that takes her all the way to Rome and through the dusty antique centers and moonlit streets of the most romantic city in the world. But soon she's trapped in a treacherous game of intrigue that could cost her life—or her heart …

One perfect red rose, a one-way ticket to Stockholm, and a cryptic "message" consisting of two Latin words intrigue art historian Vicky Bliss—as they were precisely intended to do. Beautiful, brilliant, and, as always, dangerously inquisitive, Vicky recognizes the handiwork of her former lover, the daring jewel thief John Smythe. So she takes the bait, eagerly following Smythe's lead in the hope of finding a lost treasure.

A picture is worth a thousand words … but the photograph art historian Vicky Bliss has just received in the mail gives rise to a thousand questions instead. At first glance it appears to be the famous portrait of Frau Schliemann adorned in the gold of Troy. But closer study reveals the picture to be contemporary—which is odd since Vicky knows the Trojan gold vanished sometime around the end of World War Two. And if she needed further proof that something here is terribly amiss, a quick look at the blood-stained envelope the photo arrived in should do the trick.

An assistant curator of Munich's National Museum, Vicky Bliss is no expert on Egypt, but she does have a Ph.D. in solving crimes. So when an intelligence agency offers her a luxury Nile cruise if she'll help solve a murder and stop a heist of Egyptian antiquities, all 5'11" of her takes the plunge.

An assistant curator of Munich’s National Museum, Vicky Bliss is no expert on Egypt, but she does have a Ph.D. in solving crimes. So when an intelligence agency offers her a luxury Nile cruise if she’ll help solve a murder and stop a heist of Egyptian antiquities, all 5’11” of her takes the plunge. Vicky suspects the authorities really want her to lead them to her missing lover, the art thief and master of disguises she knows only as “Sir John Smythe.” And right in the shadow of the Sphinx she spots him … with his new flame. V

“A royal treat….Welcome back, Vicky Bliss!...For readers new to Vicky’s sassy and distinctively smart stories, The Laughter of Dead Kings will mark the start of a beautiful friendship.” —Tampa Tribune New York Times bestselling Grand Master Elizabeth Peters—author of the thrilling...

New York Times bestselling Grand Master Elizabeth Peters—author of the thrilling fictional exploits of archaeologist Amelia Peabody in the Land of the Pharaohs—brings back beautiful, brainy art expert and sometime sleuth Vicky Bliss for one last adventure in The Laughter of Dead Kings. The incomparable Peters sends Vicky and her colorful entourage racing across modern-day Egypt to investigate the brazen theft of one the ancient desert land’s most priceless treasures.