The Last Camel Died at Noon is the sixth in a series of historical mystery novels, written by Elizabeth Peters and featuring fictional sleuth and archaeologist Amelia Peabody.
This story in the historical mystery series has a new genre; Last Camel satirizes adventure novels in the tradition of Henry Rider Haggard.
At home in autumn 1897, the Emersons are surprised by a visit from a young man, Reggie Forthright, followed by his grandfather Viscount Blacktower.
The letter is accompanied by a map giving directions to a lost oasis, which was shown by Forth to Professor Emerson just before he vanished without trace.
Their journey becomes life-threatening after a few days when most of their men desert (taking the water), all their camels die, and Amelia falls desperately ill.
On awakening, she is told that the servant who rescued them is actually Tarek, a royal prince, one of two heirs vying to succeed the recently deceased king of a Meroitic civilisation at the Lost Oasis.
The princes and some of the nobles and priests can speak English, which they learned from Willoughby Forth, whom they are told died a few months before the Emersons' arrival.
Continuing characters introduced for the first time in this novel include Nefret Forth and Tarek, king of the Holy Mountain.
[2] The Last Camel Died at Noon most closely follows the tradition with plot elements like a lost and ancient civilization, a young English girl serving as its high priestess, an evil prince, a wronged noble prince who wants to free the slaves, kidnappings, escapes, mazes of tunnels (and palaces) hand-carved from cliffs.
[citation needed] Publishers Weekly considers Amelia Peabody to be very like Indiana Jones but in the Victorian Era, and likes the intricate plotting, as the author “laces her usual intricate plotting with Amelia's commonsense approach to hygiene and manners, and coyly delicate references to vigorously enjoyed connubial pleasures.”[3] Another reviewer noted the difference between this novel and those earlier in the series.
[5] In his upbeat review of this novel, Peter Theroux in The New York Times said “It is enough to say that so rollicking and mythical are their adventures that comparisons must be made (and are made, in fact, by several characters in the book) with H. Rider Haggard's "King Solomon's Mines"; "The Last Camel" seems at times to be a homage to Haggard.” The story is told by Amelia Peabody Emerson “who travels like Alexander the Great but writes like Jane Austen, or sometimes the Brontes”.