{"id":3651,"date":"2020-04-16T11:45:11","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T18:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=3651"},"modified":"2020-04-17T11:59:01","modified_gmt":"2020-04-17T18:59:01","slug":"erica-ruth-neubauer-murder-at-the-mena-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/erica-ruth-neubauer-murder-at-the-mena-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Erica Ruth Neubauer: Murder at the Mena House"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Erica Ruth Neubauer\u2019s debut novel is lots of fun, much in the vein of Kerry Greenwood\u2019s delightful Phryne Fisher books. It\u2019s 1926 and Jane Wunderly is on vacation with her slightly prickly Aunt Millie, from her dead husband\u2019s side of the family.\u00a0 Aunt Millie has selected the exclusive Mena House in Cairo for their trip, a place nearly at the foot of the Great Pyramids. (It’s also the spot where Agatha Christie wrote Death on the Nile).<\/em><\/p>\n

While this novel is steeped in all things Egyptian \u2013 camel races, pyramids, the sphinx, stolen and found artifacts, along with a visit to the museum \u2013 it is not about an archeologist or archaeology. \u00a0\u00a0I thought this was an interesting choice given the time and place, but a sensible one.\u00a0 It allowed Neubauer to tell a full on traditional golden age style detective story.<\/p>\n

All the golden age suspects are present.\u00a0 There\u2019s a colonel, an obnoxious flapper, a mysterious and handsome stranger, the aforementioned aunt, the athletic ingenue and her tag along friend, and a honeymooning couple who are charming but seem to operate slightly outside the strict definition of \u201clegal.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s a fun mixture, and the two deaths tossed in don\u2019t really dim the fun of the story \u2013 another truly golden age element.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s not quite so golden age is Jane Wunderly\u2019s backstory \u2013 her dead husband was abusive and cruel, and Aunt Millie seems aware only of his lost charm.\u00a0\u00a0 Jane lost him in the war and doesn\u2019t regret it for a moment.\u00a0 But the psychological depth this gives Jane is more modern than golden age, and it\u2019s a nice mix.\u00a0 Neither is too heavy handed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Mena House in the 1930’s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This story also has some strong adventure elements \u2013 there\u2019s a debt here not just to Phryne Fisher and Lauren Willig\u2019s Pink Carnation books but even to the inimitable Mrs. Pollifax.\u00a0 While a golden age detective like Marple or Poirot would use mostly their brains alone to solve a crime, Jane is in the thick of the action, uncovering clues and getting herself into trouble.\u00a0 It adds buoyancy to the story.<\/p>\n

The resolution is properly romantic (I did mention a handsome stranger), and Jane also finds herself far more capable than she had supposed though she often needs to take a step out of the action to think and re-group.\u00a0 Jane is an appealing central character who obviously is on the verge of a journey of self discovery.\u00a0 I also loved the setting and the hotel itself, shared with the reader in lavish detail.\u00a0 In this time of quarantine, it\u2019s great to have a chance to take a little armchair jaunt back to 1926.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Erica Ruth Neubauer\u2019s debut novel is lots of fun, much in the vein of Kerry Greenwood\u2019s delightful Phryne Fisher books. It\u2019s 1926 and Jane Wunderly is on vacation with her slightly prickly Aunt Millie, from her dead husband\u2019s side of the family.\u00a0 Aunt Millie has selected the exclusive Mena House in Cairo for their trip, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[54,348,350,10,351,349],"class_list":["post-3651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-agatha-christie","tag-egypt","tag-erica-ruth-neubauer","tag-historical","tag-jane-wunderly","tag-murder-at-the-mena-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3651"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3657,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3651\/revisions\/3657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}