Customer Reviews

The Night of Four Hundred Rabbits (Library Edition)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Elizabeth Peters is a great writer of mysteries. Most of her books have a terrific mixture of lighthearted style, tricky puzzles, exotic settings, and characters endowed with personality. I almost always enjoy their interactions. Four Hundred Rabbits was written in the early 70s, and the protagonist is still something of a stereotypical helpless woman--understandable for its time, but not so great when you compare her to the protagonists in Ms. Peters' later books (especially the Amelia Peabody mysteries). However, what really disappointed me was the shallowness of secondary characters, and the relationships among the characters. In 400 Rabbits, there's a murkiness in the relationships that doesn't feel mysterious, just not carefully thought out. The voices don't sound as real as usual.

Of course, I'm comparing thsi work to other works by the same author; I'd recommend you select one of Ms. Peters more recent mysteries, which are nearly note-perfect, over this. But by all means, pick something she's written; you're certain to be hooked.

This book starts out slow, and I had to get through the first couple of chapters to get to the interesting part. A young college student and her boyfriend journey to Mexico to find the woman's father. The father left when she was a child and has not communicated with her since. He seems to be ambivalent about seeing her again and his household is a strange one. The boyfriend strikes up a friendship with Ivan, the son of Carol's father's paramour, and the trip seems to disintegrate from there. His previously mild drug habit becomes worse and a strange man seems to be following Carol.

There are a few unexplained plot points and loose ends here, and the language is a bit dated, but this is an entertaining book, good for the beach.

I've read 8 Elizabeth Peters books to date and this was the only one that I didn't absolutely adore. I was not prepared for the amount of drug content in it, and frankly it caught me completely off guard and made me uncomfortable. If you're looking for something light-hearted and a more fun read, stick to the Vicky Bliss books.

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Elizabeth Peters was still looking for her own voice when she wrote THE NIGHT OF FOUR HUNDRED RABBITS. The title refers to Aztec law: degrees of intoxication were described as numbers of rabbits, and it was illegal for anyone under fifty years old to become four hundred rabbits. The law wasn't a minor one; the penalty was death.

In this book, a young woman is lured to Mexico to locate her father, who abruptly left his country, wife, child, and job when she was twelve years old. As a mystery, it works very well; as a romantic suspense, it works reasonably well. It just doesn't have that je ne sais quoi that distinguishes Elizabeth Peters's work from anyone else's.

The descriptions of drug use are harrowing, as we watch a decent young man descend into addiction so severe that he will sell out the woman he wanted to marry for one hit of a hallucinogenic, and the same woman's father seems to be involved.

Saying any more would create a spoiler, so I will leave it here. This happened to be the first of Barbara Mertz's books that I read, and I was an instant fan. I strongly recommend this story, even if I can't give it five stars.

This book starts out slow, and I had to get through the first couple of chapters to get to the interesting part. A young college student and her boyfriend journey to Mexico to find the woman's father. The father left when she was a child and has not communicated with her since. He seems to be ambivalent about seeing her again and his household is a strange one. The boyfriend strikes up a friendship with Ivan, the son of Carol's father's paramour, and the trip seems to disintegrate from there. His previously mild drug habit becomes worse and a strange man seems to be following Carol.

There are a few unexplained plot points and loose ends here, and the language is a bit dated, but this is an entertaining book, good for the beach.

Elizabeth Peters is certainly one prolific author, whether
she calls herself Barbara Michaels, or whether she goes by
her real name, which my sources would not have me disclose,
no matter what form of torture is applied. (It does appear,
of all places, in Grolier's Multimedia Encyclopedia.) In
this novel, Ms. Peters does the wonder of transporting us to
a Mexico that never was, with characters handpicked to
represent the heyday's of the 60's and 70's, right out of
El Zorro, with just a little bit of Tijuana thrown in for
good measure. As always, she manages to involve her
readers in the most mundane of occurrences, while managing
at the same time to make them seem earth-shattering and
unique. I have to confess that I, too, at this point,
suffer from an addiction to her books, which is perhaps
mitigated by the knowledge that it is the medium which
allows me the greatest utilization of my free time in
order to dissipate my everyday tensions. I heartily
recommend this book, which will keep you guessing wrong
until the last moment which hero is going to carry off
the heroine (or is it heroin?). Anyhow, please do not
take this the wrong way, but this book is probably best
read with a turist guide to Mexico right at your side,
which is probably the way the author composed her book,
just using it to refresh her memory for the most note-
worthy tourist treasures. Bravo!

Let me start by saying I am a huge fan of this author! That being said I was frustrated and insulted by this book. This was of course before I realized when it was published. Honestly Night of 400 rabbits amounts to little more than a anti-drug diatribe based on fear and poorly researched stereotypes. Within a few pages Peters conjures up at least half a dozen of the ridiculous urban legends created by anti-drug groups and paranoid parents during the sixties backlash. I was expecting a fair and well rounded vision of the dangers of drugs from an educated point of view, in short the novel that I believe this would have been had Peters written it recently. In her defense the vision of hallucinogens shown here as dangerous, unpredictable, (causing kids to walk out windows etc.) and demoralizing was widely accepted at the time. In our age of PCP, and Methanmphetamine the plot of this novel is hardly believable.

In Peters defense this novel was clearly meant to be soft enjoyable fiction and is only ridiculous when read from a modern perspective. She has only gotten better and better with time and I fully endorse her later work. If you are a Peters fan I suggest you ignore this novel, we all make mistakes ;-)