Travel without leaving home
Is the high cost of gas requiring some adjustments in your life and perhaps in your vacation plans? Beat the heat and the gas increases by taking a trip via fiction and explore places far and wide.
Explore the pyramids and tombs of ancient Egypt with Amelia Peabody, amateur Egyptologist and sleuth. Author Elizabeth Peters begins the series in “Crocodile on the Sandbank” where Amelia meets her future husband, Radcliffe Emerson, and off they go to Egypt for years of adventure and intrigue. Amelia and “Emerson” as she affectionately calls him, have a precocious child, Ramses. Amid the family life of this unusual Victorian family you travel to the tombs of pharaohs and experience not only the sights and sounds of the bazaar, but also its dangers. Reading about Amelia’s exploits is an easy, safe and cool way to “travel” to Egypt.
Avoid the heat and the humidity of Florida in the summer and take a trip via two of my favorite authors, Carl Hiaasen and Edna Buchanan. Hiaasen’s novels often find their way into the Florida Keys where you’ll meet some four and two legged “wild” life. Hiaasen doesn’t have one central character in all of his novels, but is sure to include a couple of wackos to make you smile despite all the murder and mayhem.
Buchanan, herself a crime reporter for the Miami Herald, is no stranger to the surroundings and the beat. Her protagonist, Britt Montero, crime reporter, gets involved with romance and murder in steamy Miami. Meet Brit and her colleagues in “Contents Under Pressure,” the first in this eight book series.
P.D. James is one of England’s most prominent mystery authors, right up there with Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and Margery Allingham. In addition to a tight plot, well developed characters and a detective, Adam Dalgliesh, who is precise and methodical in his investigation James gives us beautiful descriptions of the English countryside and the busy streets of London. Meet Dalgliesh in “Cover Her Face,” the first of thirteen.
Real life forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs’ alter ego is Temperance Brennan who has recently moved from North Carolina to Montreal, Quebec. Glimpses of Montreal and the French Canadian culture are found in “Deja Dead,” the first Temperance Brennan mystery.
On a lighter note travel to France and lap up the sunshine, wine and French cuisine as you follow the escapades of Simon Shaw, British ad executive turned hotelier in “Hotel Pastis” by Peter Mayle. Another delightful, downright funny book by Mayle is “A Dog’s Life,” the “autobiography” of his dog, “Boy.”