Tue 11 Feb 2020
Archived Review: ELIZABETH PETERS – The Night of Four Hundred Rabbits.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[2] Comments
ELIZABETH PETERS – The Night of Four Hundred Rabbits. Tor, paperback, 1989. First published by Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1971. Also reprinted by Dell, paperback, 1972, and Avon, paperback, 2002.
Elizabeth Peters is a hot author right now. There aren’t man others writers whose books are being dug up from 15 years ago to be reprinted, and for the first time, so far as I can tell. [Not so. Dell did a paperback edition in 1972.] Sad to say, however, the book in question is not one of her better ones.
It’s about the drug culture of the 70s, a generation ago, taking place in Mexico, where a girl is trying to find her father. Some things stay the same, but others do not. The story may have have all the mysterious ingredients it needs, but [case in pint] still be relic of the past.
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PostScript: Thinking a bit more about this, I think it’s the books of the 60s and 70s which are beginning to show their age the most. I can read a mystery taking place in the 30s or 40s with very little problem, but here this book is less thhn 20 years old, and it’s already starting to creak.
The same is true with movies. I tried to watch one of the Shaft pictures a month or so ago, and it was embarrassing. There’s nothing more dead than a fad that’s past its prime.
February 12th, 2020 at 9:56 pm
Not Peters at her best, but she is more often at her best than not, which was one reason she was being reprinted.
February 12th, 2020 at 10:26 pm
As the opening of this old review says, Peters was a very popular author at the time, and even the lesser novels from the beginning of her career sold well when reprinted. While I getting this review to post, though, it was sad to realize, however, that since her death, she’s already begun the process of being forgotten.