THE SERPENT’S DAUGHTER

Intrepid adventuress is snagged in dangerous North African kidnap plot.

Jade del Cameron hopes that a trip to exotic Morocco will be her chance for a rapprochement with her disapproving mother, Inez, who thinks that proper young ladies of 1920 don’t gallivant around the globe flying airplanes and taking photographs. But Jade does, and occasionally solves mysteries as well (Stalking Ivory, 2007, etc.). Their touring party, a cross-section out of Agatha Christie—British missionary couple, American honeymooners, Spanish dowager et al.—has a perfectly pleasant dinner in a Tangier restaurant marred only by the discordant exchanges of Jade and Inez. Next morning, Jade can find no trace of Inez, and suspects abduction. A note leads her to a dark tunnel. There she finds a dead Moroccan with a knife in his back. She rushes to report the body to condescending local police detective Lieutenant Gervais, but when they return to the fatal spot, the corpse has disappeared. Gervais makes no attempt to hide his skepticism about the Moroccan murder and the peril to Inez, so it falls to Jade to investigate on her own. She’s briefly reunited with Inez before they’re separated again. A nemesis from one of Jade’s previous escapades holds a key to the mystery, which also involves an amazing (and heretofore secret) fact about Jade’s identity.

A blithe and well-appointed period caper in which the author deftly avoids the tempting descent into camp.