Leslie's Book Fort

I love this book (Ramses is probably hovering at just about his most delightfully obnoxious, though he may be more so in the next two books), but I really, really regret downloading this audio version from the library instead of buying Barbara Rosenblatt's superlative one at Audible. Rosenblatt is just so far above and beyond this narrator that it's like night and day. Add to that the obvious splicing in of rerecorded sentences in which her voice sounds completely different from the one she adopted for the original reading (not really that bad, except in comparison to Rosenblatt), and it's just not the same.

That aside, the story itself is as entertaining as always, as Emerson and Peabody return to Egypt with (for the first time) Ramses in tow and find themselves once again enmeshed in a criminal conspiracy, this time with the illegal antiquities trade. Forced to accept an inferior site due to Emerson's tactlessness, they are also beset by religious fanatics of all faiths, the presence of the insufferably smug Monsieur de Morgan at the nearby excavation, and the first appearance of Sethos, the mysterious Master Criminal, who will dog their steps through the next several books.