The Case of the Stolen Goddess

Detectives Flinders Petrie and Thomas Pettigrew are reminiscing about their last case many moons ago, in which they attempted to find Cleopatra’s tomb. Sitting at home, Flinders tells Pettigrew that he is bored. Although they ran a detective business, there hadn’t been much action and adventure since Egypt. Before Lady Stanhope hired them to find Cleopatra, both detectives needed more money than their agency was bringing in. Flinders became a curator at the British Museum. Pettigrew spent his days delivering babies at a local clinic. But now, since they became famous, well-known clients are knocking on their door. But nothing as exciting as Egypt had come along.

When I started to read The Case of the Stolen Goddess, I was very fond of the banter between the two detectives. That soon became old as the details of every little thing, from what each character was wearing to the description of obscure characters that would only appear once in the book to banter in which the characters were saying a whole lot of nothing, filled the pages. I often got lost reading the book, and getting to the title case seemed to take an eternity. When a man named Budge, the Keeper of Antiquities at the British Museum, approaches Petrie and Pettigrew to recover a small statue of Aphrodite, the two detectives are thrilled to take on the case.

The story itself is rather fun and creative. It reminded me of the Indiana Jones series, mainly because the detectives had to travel to foreign lands and encounter evil beings to get the statue back. They ride camels, meet mysterious characters, and get their hands dirty. They even meet T.E. Lawrence and Gertrude Bell, who help them as they make their way through Syria and Istanbul. I also enjoyed the villains and how the author gave his readers their backstories. The Veiled One has a particularly heartbreaking story, and I wondered if he was indeed the bad one in the grand scheme of right or wrong when it came to the origination of the statue.

Overall, I found the story entertaining and the setting wonderful. The characters were also very enjoyable in terms of intelligence and general background. I would have liked to have seen less unnecessary dialogue and scenes in the book, which would have helped with the flow of the story. It moved too slowly for me, and I became bored in several parts of the book, wishing for the action and adventure to start.