REVIEW: CATS IN THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION

Glenda Nagel, editor for Getty Museum’s monthly magazine loves her home in the Juniper Hills and her cats. When an ivory and emerald statuette of the cat goddess Bastet makes its way to her home and sets her cats on edge, Glenda is panicked.
Who knows about his and why has the darkly handsome, new Director of Egyptian Antiquities become so determined to visit her high desert home? Doesn’t Egypt have enough sand?



Available at Rogue Phoenix Press





REVIEW:


 RATING: 3.5 Stars



Glenda Nagel has built a reasonably happy life for herself. She is the editor of Getty Museum’s monthly magazine, and lives with her three cats in a nice house in Antelope Valley, outside Los Angeles.  If she wishes, she can arrange to work at home instead of in her museum office.  Presently, she is working on a magazine article about the discovery of the tomb of an Egyptian Princess, Kia, and also looking forward to meeting the museum’s new Antiquities Director, Dabir Riyadh, whose family is highly respected in the field.

But on the day she meets Riyadh, her comfortable life starts falling apart.  She learns that some very valuable artifacts from Princess Kia’s tomb have been stolen.  Two Interpol investigators, Lydia Thompson and Nasim Shabouh, are coming to talk to Riyadh, and when the new director learns of this, he unexpectedly gives Glenda a gift, a lovely vase.  She can’t find a good place for it in her crowded office, so she takes it home.  One of her cats gets extremely upset, the vase is broken, and Glenda finds that an exquisite, ancient statuette of the goddess Bastet was hidden inside it.  From there on, things become very tense and alarming. Glenda starts working with the Interpol agents, and hiding from the tomb thief and a criminal organization that wants to buy the artifacts.

I really enjoyed most of this book.  Many of the characters, especially Glenda, Nasim, Riyadh, Lydia, and even Glenda’s secretary, are interesting and believable.  There are some very nice settings: the museum, Glenda’s home, Riyadh’s mansion, and a few other homes in the Antelope Valley region.  The central plot is an excellent romantic suspense story.  Glenda is definitely being pursued, and the little statuette of Bastet becomes very important.  I even enjoyed the relationship between Glenda’s Persian cat and the statuette, although this plot point actually just drifts off.

And that, unfortunately, is the major reason I cannot say I enjoyed the whole  book.  There are a few too many little plot lines that are brought in, often getting in the way of more important elements, and then just fading away, either forgotten completely or getting a very brief resolution.  I’m still glad I read the book, because there were so many interesting characters and fascinating important plot points. I hope the author writes some more suspense stories.  But I have to give this one 3.5 stars.

I’m grateful for the reviewer’s copy I was given.


Reviewed by: Roberta