ELIZABETH PETERS – The Camelot Caper.

Avon, paperback reprint, 2001. Meredith Press, hardcover, 1969. Hardcover reprint: Detective Book Club [3-in-1 edition], September 1969. Other paperback editions: Dell 3521, 1970, as Her Cousin John; Tor, 1988,1990.

   Elizabeth Peters is one of the smoothest writers around, and she has been for quite a long time. This one was written in the heyday of the gothic romances, and her take on the damsel-in-distress-while-traveling-alone sort of tale is absolutely priceless, not to mention rollicking and sometimes rowdy.

   Jessica Tregarth has been called to England by her dying grandfather, and she is to bring the ring her father, disowned by his father, took with him when he left for America. When she reaches England, the ring suddenly seems to attract a pair of villains, intent on stealing it from her, in any way that they can.

   Of course there is a hero to come to her aid and assistance, one David Randall, the author of the very same gothic paperback Jessica is reading on page one. It’s cut and chase, and backtrack and chase again, but in reverse. The bus ride in Chapter Two is worth the price of the book itself.

   Farce, though, or even near farce, is very difficult to maintain, and even more difficult when the structure of a plot starts to work its way in. The second half of the book (once David and Jessica finally reach her grandfather’s dilapidated, run-down mansion) does not nearly match the story one has been led to expect — anticipation is one thing, fulfillment is another.

   It would make a great movie, though. Cybil Shepherd, say, and any handsome and dashing good-looking British actor for the other. Considering all of the medieval cathedrals they dash in and out of, not to mention Stonehenge at midnight — and of course the Arthurian connection — Hollywood’s missing a good bet here.