Whodunit? Who Cares?

THE LAUGHTER OF DEAD KINGS

A Vicky Bliss Novel of Suspense

By Elizabeth Peters

Morrow. 324 pp. $25.95

I wanted to love Elizabeth Peters's "The Laughter of Dead Kings" because I know how much even a single quibble in an otherwise laudatory review can sting. I'm afraid, however, this is the kind of book I ordinarily toss aside after the first page.

Her publisher claims that Peters is a renowned Egyptologist and "America's premier author of archaeological whodunits." This new novel is the conclusion to her Vicky Bliss suspense series, which began in 1973 with "Borrower of the Night."

Vicky is a beautiful and brainy art historian. She has a handsome, aristocratic British boyfriend who used to be an international art thief known as Sir John Smythe. He's gone legit now, but someone has stolen King Tut's mummy, and everyone thinks Sir John dunit. Vicky must find the real thief and clear John's name by the end of the story, so he can ask her to marry him.

Sometimes good prose can make up for a dumb plot and cardboard characters, but Peters is not a stylist. White is pearly, skies are azure and Rome is eternal. And then there's the Nancy Drewish narrator, who tells us that upon seeing her boyfriend, "My toes went numb." Vicky calls herself a sleuth and actually talks about "clues."

And talks and talks and talks. I felt as though I were trapped in a small room with Vicky, overhearing her half of a relentless cellphone conversation. To be fair, Vicky isn't the only one who talks. It just seems like it because the characters all sound alike: male, female, Egyptian, British, American, Italian, German. (Okay, the Brit says "bloody," and the German guy says "Sehr gut" occasionally.) We endure banal exchanges like the following:

"He bowed gracefully. 'May I offer you a glass of wine?'

" 'Only if you're paying for it.'

"This sally produced a shout of laughter. 'Ah, she is witty as well as beautiful!' "

Everyone in the novel seems to be about 14 mentally. There are no thoughtful reactions, no moments of insight, no pauses to reflect, although at one point, "John brooded, thinking it over," before he continues talking. The author could usefully vary her story by giving her characters some sort of adult inner life -- some fears and foibles, a cranky political opinion, the occasional flash of hard-won wisdom.

She might also consider making use of a cinematic technique and pull back for an establishing shot now and then. Characters get off airplanes, and we're told they're in England or Italy or Germany, but there's no other indication of the locale, although sometimes a restaurant name is dropped into the narrative. Show us something about Rome or Cairo. Let us see the place, hear it, smell it. This would also let us escape the expository chatter.

Finally, anyone who works in the Middle East, as a renowned Egyptologist presumably does, would do well to be careful about sentences like "Ali invoked his god," which demotes Allah to the status of a small-g deity like Hermes or Venus. On the other hand, perhaps Peters hasn't been back to the Middle East lately, given her breathtaking assertion that "terrorist attacks are . . . as likely in New York and Madrid as in the Middle East."