The Last Camel Died at Noon is the sixth in a series of historical mystery novels, written by Elizabeth Peters and featuring fictional sleuth and archaeologist Amelia Peabody. It was first published in 1991. This story in the historical mystery series has a new genre; Last Camel satirizes adventure novels in the tradition of Henry Rider Haggard. One reviewer considered this an homage to Haggard. The story is set in the 1897–98 dig season, partly in Egypt, then moving west to Sudan.
Plot summary
At home in autumn 1897, the Emersons are disturbed by a visit from aristocrats Viscount Blacktower and the grandson by his younger son, Reggie Forthright. The viscount is concerned about his older son, explorer Willoughby Forth, who disappeared fourteen years ago in the desert west of the Nile in the Sudan. The viscount received a communication from his son a few days earlier, unsure how it reached London. It contained a letter written by his older son on papyrus and a map sketched on paper. The map was on the back of a page from Emerson's own notebook, drawn by Willie Forth, with landmarks en route to the Lost Oasis. Blacktower wants the Emersons to find his son, or learn his fate. Emerson does not accept. After the men leave, Radcliffe says he met Willie and his new wife in Africa 14 years earlier. Willie wanted to travel to a place of myth in the Sudan with his much younger wife, an unsafe area in 1883. That is when the map was sketched.
Prior to that visit, Radcliffe had decided to work that season in Sudan near the River Nile, as he saw chances for new discoveries, but not in the western desert. Radcliffe, Amelia, and Ramses travel to the Sudan, to excavate at Gebel Barkal and Napata, the first Nubian capital. They travel by camel, not via the Nile, to Nuri with its pyramids. The sudden appearance of Reggie Forthright at their dig causes them to alter their plans. Reggie seeks his uncle, trekking to the Lost Oasis, sending back a messenger reporting he was seized; the Emersons go after him, travelling on camels in the desert.
The Emersons need rescue themselves when all but one of their men desert, all their camels die a few days out, and Amelia falls ill, unconscious. The last faithful servant says he can run to the oasis ahead, for water. He does so, and then brings them to the Lost Oasis.
Amelia suffers the worst, taking weeks to fully recover. The Lost Oasis has the remnants of the Meroitic royalty who ruled Ancient Egypt during the Late Period. That one loyal servant is Tarek, one of two princely brothers struggling for power after the king’s death.
Once in full health, the archaeologists are amazed to be amidst the very civilization whose relics and writings they have studied. The intrigues, politics, and social mores push and prod the Emersons in ways new to them, compared to a usual dig near the Nile. They work to learn what happened to Willie Forth, his wife, their child, and his nephew Reggie. Amelia and Emerson walk out to the cemetery, see the grave of Willie Forth, who had taught English to many. They are puzzled that his wife is not buried next to him.
Dinner with the princes, a visit with the dowager queen, clandestine meetings with handmaidens to the gods, and plans to escape make their daily life lively. Young Ramses is dressed as a boy in that ancient culture, befriended by many.
Nefret, now a priestess to Isis, is introduced to the Emersons, the teenaged daughter of Forth, raised first by her father and then by those taught by her father, in her chambers. She was told that her mother died young. She wants to leave. Then Reggie appears in the Emersons’ chambers, released from a dungeon, and is a chancy ally to the Emersons.
These English people must escape or be killed. Ramses hides in the tunnels when his parents are taken, where he links with Tarek.
In a major event at the temple to select the next king, the god Aminreh speaks his decision. All three Emersons are present along with the soldiers and priests. The two brothers battle to the death and Tarek, friend to the Emersons, wins the crown.
Radcliffe participates in the blood-soaked battle; victorious Tarek leads Amelia to her husband in a far away room with Willie’s wife, still alive. She had rejected her newborn daughter and is now obese and alone, saying she is the wife of a god, and had requested Radcliffe be carried to her. After the struggle Radcliffe had with her soldier so he could leave, Mrs Forth fell dead. Tarek has never told Nefret that story of her mother’s rejection of her newborn baby, and the Emersons agree never to mention it to her. Tarek made his trip to England with the letter and map so that Nefret would be returned to her people.