Crocodile on the Sandbank

Crocodile on the Sandbank is a historical mystery novel by Elizabeth Peters, first published in 1975.[1] It is the first in the Amelia Peabody series of novels and takes place in 1884-1885 Amelia Peabody is left a wealthy orphan after the death of her studious father, who has left her everything in his will because she is the only one of his children who shared his interests, namely history and archaeology. The inheritance enables her to travel abroad in order to follow her enthusiasm for antiquities. Amelia, a determined and unorthodox English female, supports women's suffrage and believes she will never marry. (She's convinced she is unattractive and will neither submit to a man nor rule one.) Amelia and Radcliffe Emerson loathe one another on sight, but after he is taken ill and she helps to keep his excavation going, they grudgingly begin to respect one another. Things get complicated when Evelyn's cousin Lucas shows up at the remote site with a story about her grandfather's death. Plus,Emerson and Amelia must also deal with the nocturnal visitations of a mummy that walks moaning through the desert. The tone of the novel (as well as the rest of the series) is humorous to the point of parody and pokes fun at many of the period's mores and stereotypes, as well as the sensationalist novels popular at the time.