I've been hearing about Elizabeth Peters ' Vicky Bliss and Amelia Peabody books for quite awhile now and for some reason just haven't found my way to reading any of them until now. I noticed these re-issues of the Vicky Bliss series and decided to pick up the first one and see. Vicky is an art historian with a delightful sense of humor and a certain dry acceptance of her statuesque stature and tendency to intimidate those around her. When we first meet Vicky, she is teaching at a college in the Midwest and maintaining a sort of on-again off-again relationship with her colleague Tony Lawrence. Tony is a hapless, hopeless, skinny version of Vicky who, failing to get her to marry him, decides he'll settle for besting her professionally. Ha. The two soon find themselves racing each other to Germany in search of a medieval artifact presumed missing for centuries. Here's the thing. I liked Vicky and Tony right off the bat. I liked the whole premise for the story. It ...