The Camelot Caper

The very early prequel to the Vicky Bliss series. The villian and his sidekick thug - the beautiful tourist - the confused hero - all the ingredients for an exciting and fun read. Jessica visits England to return THE RING to her grandfather....alas, once she reaches England annoying and progressively more dangerous things happen to her. She meets her "Knight" in a red Jag and he thinks it all a joke,,,until the "Villians" pay him a visit and leave him bruised and believing. The dark and gloomy castle, THE RING, the villians unmasked and the exciting conclusion to the story. Remember Cousin John and read "The Street of the Five Moons". It is always pleasant to find a favorite villian move his base of operations....I do love a great "villian/hero" ..Hooray for Cousin John Tregarth

I really enjoyed this book. This was the second book I've read by Elizabeth Peter's (a.k.a. Barbara Mertz)and I was just simply hooked. I've been desperate to go back to England and see for myself the vivid landscapes that she writes about in this book. I loved the banter between Jessica and David. If you are an Anglophile, you will love this one.

This was the first Elizabeth Peters book I ever read, and I give thanks for the day I did so since it introduced me to this wonderful writer. I read it as a teenager, and it is still one of my favorite books to re-read. I simply enjoy all of the characters, and the dialogue always amuses me.

Elizabeth Peters shows once again that she is the best in mystery writing. Her characters are compelling and she always makes you laugh. In addition, you will fall in love with her heros and see yourself in her heroines! She also writes under the name Barbara Michaels. (Her real name is Barbara Mertz.) Under any name, she is one of my all time favorite writers!

Elizabeth Peters' adventure novels are amusing, intelligent, and marvelously successful at spoofing their genre while providing all the pleasures of the real thing. In her recent novels particularly Ms. Peters has taken the classic Mary Stewart-style adventure/romance and turned it into witty, literate pieces of fluff that even a 1990's romantic can wholeheartedly enjoy. No one, on reading the perfectly balanced immodesty (in all senses of the word) of Ms. Peters' latest heroes and heroines, need feel that they are subverting their feminist ideals, or feel obliged to adopt the resolute blinkers needed to enjoy the charming but socially distressing romances of , say, Georgette Heyer (whose unspoken assumptions about class, gender and race would, if met face-on, deeply offend just about any American today). The Camelot Caper was one of Ms. Peters earlier ventures, and while it is picture-perfect with its spoof it hadn't, in the late 1960's, quite broken through a certain passive cast to the heroine that was once endemic to these sorts of stories. It did, however, introduce a highly amusing, rather attractive villain whose name will evoke whoops of delight from fans of the superb art historian-turned-amateur-detective series most recently embodied in Ms. Peters' Night Train to Memphis. For that alone (though there is also some very funny dialogue), this book is definitely worth a first or a return read.