Antiquities Trigger Lethal Greed: Silhouette in Scarlet (1983)

 

Elizabeth Peters. Silhouette in Scarlet (1983) Pleasant fluff. Vicky Bliss falls for what we would call click-bait these days, flying to Stockholm for a holiday knowing that John Smythe has once again planned a caper aimed at producing cash. The McGuffin is a Viking chalice found on the property of an eccentric Swedish plutocrat who doesn’t want his lake-bound island dug up by archeologists. A gang of thieves specialising in antiquities want in. So we have some charming characters, a couple of psychopaths, the threat of death, and finally a barely plausible operation by the lake-shore villagers that rescues Vicky and puts the thieves in jail. Plus a hint that there will be another adventure in this series.
     I began reading this on the flight to Edmonton, continued it on the flight back, and finished it at home. If you like well-written adventure romance that knows it’s fantasy, you’ll like the Vicky Bliss series. It would make a nicely light-hearted series. Think Romancing the Stone extended until the writers run out of ideas. **½