When her husband is unjustly accused of theft and murder in Napoleonic France, Mme. Victoire Vernet sets out to clear his name and finds herself in the middle of a plot to assassinate Napoleon.
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From Publishers Weekly
Napoleon Bonaparte is under siege from Admiral Nelson in his North Africa stronghold, but the real battle in this mystery, a first in a series, is over the fate of Lucien Vernet, the head of the military gendarmes. He is suspected by Napoleon's chief aide of murdering a marine guard and stealing a priceless pharaonic scepter, the major French spoil of war and symbol of the pasha's dominion. Against all odds--and the mores of the era--Victoire Vernet, the accused officer's wife, traipses across Egypt to prove her husband innocent. Along the way she risks death in the pasha's castle, watches her only female comrade-in-arms die at the hands of an Englishman and narrowly escapes death by diving into the Nile. Unfortunately, the authors (Quinn Fawcett is a pseudonym for Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Bill Fawcett) seem to have put more effort into their elaboration on the geography of 18th-century Egypt than into the plot, settling for a solution to the mystery akin to a Napoleonic version of "the butler did it." Victoire's character is a bit forced--a likeable if somewhat boring modern feminist in the body of a corseted Napoleonic lady.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Late 18th Century Egypt,
By Lyn Reese (Berkeley, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Napoleon Must Die: A Mme. Vernet Investigation (Paperback)
Recently married Victoire Vernet has followed her gendarme husband to Egypt where they are both camped near Cairo after the French victory over the Mamluks in the battle of the Pyramids (July 1798). When her husband is wrongly accused of theft and murder, Victoire sets out to clear his name and save his career. Defying the proper role required of the obedient military wife, she flaunts convention in her investigation by managing to cross the Western desert, boat down the Nile, wander through extremely dangerous Cairo, and, in disguise, enter the Pasha's palace. In the process, she uncovers an insidious conspiracy to assassinate Napoleon himself.
The plot makes much of the oppressively narrow social restrictions on both French and Egyptian women. Victoire must overcome fears of potential kidnapping into "white slavery" when she ventures beyond the protection of the military camp. Upper class Egyptian women are secluded, and veiled outside their homes. Both European and Arab males agree that, "There are a few things women must do: they must be mothers, and they must obey the will of their fathers and husbands. Anything else is unnatural." This attitude reflects both the regressive status of post-Revolution French women, enshrined in the harshly patriarchal Napoleonic Code, and the conservative Egyptian reaction to French imperialism. One of two of the book's authors, Bill Fawcett, is a Napoleanic-era history buff. His contribution provides excellent details of the unsavory, unsanitary conditions in the military camp and Egyptian villages. He provides interesting details of the destruction of the French fleet by Nelson in Aboukir Bay and the failed French siege of Acre. The story, however, provides little information about women beyond the sometimes overly relentless male admonitions. Victoire never has even one encounter with her female peers while at camp, and the reader meets only one young relatively well educated upper class Egyptian woman. A more sensitive portrayal of the full range of female experiences would have been welcome. This is the first of the Mme. Vernet mystery series. Lacking is an indication of some of the sources the authors drew upon.
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