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Readingomnivore Reviews

WIN, LOSE, OR DARCY is one of Jennifer Joy’s variants on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It opens at the ball at Netherfield Park and extends through some of the following Season. It was published in e-book format in 2016. med

Elizabeth Bennet is much embarrassed with her family’s behavior at Charles Bingley’s ball at Netherfield. She believes George Wickham’s stories of Darcy’s mistreatment, though her friend Charlotte cautions her about Wickham; Elizabeth condemns Darcy to his face. After Bingley and Darcy leave Netherfield, the Bennets discover that Mrs. Bennet’s “investment” in a lottery ticket has paid off £30,000. They are off to London for the Season, in full belief that the girls will find wealthy husbands to offset Elizabeth’s refusal to marry Mr. Collins. Sophia Kingsley, a member of the Ton who’d been reared by Lady Anne Darcy at Pemberley after her parents’ death, befriends Jane and Elizabeth Bennet, introducing them to the highest levels of society. In the meantime, Mary rejects the social whirl to live and work at an orphanage, while Mrs. Bennet discovers the joys of gambling and of unlimited spending for herself and her younger daughters. Thrown into Darcy’s company in London, Elizabeth’s opinion of him changes, while he becomes even more convinced that she’s his ideal wife. He’s traveling north to return Georgiana to Pemberley and to bring Bingley back to Jane, when the Bennets (and Society) learn they’ve lost everything in the embezzlement and collapse of Andrich’s bank. Not only do they have no money, debts amount to £5,000. Sophia Kingsley cuts them dead and uses their situation to further her own ambition. The Bennets, led by Elizabeth and Uncle Edward Gardiner, make arrangements to pay as and when they can, and return in disgrace to Longbourn. Gerard Gordon, Darcy, and Bingley save the day.

Joy is economical with her cast of characters. Lady Catherine and Anne de Bourgh are barely mentioned; Mr. Collins gets a happy ending with the only Bennet daughter apt to make him a good wife; Charlotte marries an Earl; Caroline Bingley’s role is minimal. Sophia Kingsley and Gerard Gordon are the two major introductions. Each reminds the reader of the danger of believing “first impressions” (the original title for Pride and Prejudice).

Point of view is divided between Elizabeth and Darcy, with their thoughts and feelings the main method of characterization. Darcy is slow to realize that he’s in love, but he and the rest of Austen’s originals are largely unchanged. Elizabeth, however, is not. She, of all the Bennets, is the only one concerned about the family’s lavish spending, but she accepts her father’s reassurances and pays no further attention. Austen’s Elizabeth, with her common sense and knowing her father’s lack of responsibility, would not simply forget about paying the bills.

WIN, LOSE, OR DARCY is a unique variant, one of the better I’ve seen. (A-)
 
OCCAM’S MURDER is the second book in T. J. Toman’s mystery series featuring C.J. Whitmore, the first tenured female professor of economics at Connecticut’s prestigious Eaton University. C.J. played the academic game to obtain her tenure, but with it granted, she reverts to her good ole’ Texas girl self as a goad for department chair and the other tenured (male) fossils. It was published in 2016 in e-book format.

All the action of OCCAM’S MURDER take place on the first day of classes in spring semester. Most of the tenured faculty will not be present, but tradition dictates that the election for department chair occur that afternoon. Peter Johannson has served as chair for six months while permanent chair Walter Scovill’s been in treatment for the personality disorders revealed in PICKING LEMONS; they are the candidates for election to a three-year term. Four votes are essential: Lauren Masters, a new-hire assistant professor who fully intends to sleep her way into tenure; James Brimmage, an Aussie world-class womanizer who considers more than two hours work per day quite excessive; Arthur Fleitman, 78-year-old new hire from Princeton who’d been Scovill’s Ph.D. supervisor; and Charles Covington, 88-year-old fixture at Eaton, whose comfortable life is being upset by his wife’s recent “emancipation.” Shifts of point of view almost minute by minute display the meetings, negotiations, and personal opinions of all the major characters. Someone kills Lauren Masters just after she came to work, but no one finds her body until mid-afternoon when C.J. goes to look for her to vote. C.J. also finds Brimmage dead in his office while on the same mission. Who wanted them dead? How does their removal affect the election of the chair?

I like C.J. Whitmore. I enjoy the authenticity of her personality and the frankness of her speech. “C.J. gazed intently at James, like a farmer inspecting the livestock. She peered searchingly at his crotch, tilting her heat from one side to the other, and pursing her mouth in concentration. Finally, she shook her head. ‘I think I’ll have to pass on the coffee,’ said C.J. with a smile. ‘More gelding than stallion, I see. I give you three out of ten.’ C.J. paused and studied James’s pants once more. ‘Lucky for you that grade inflation is so rampant these days.’ “

Characterization is definitely strong. Walter Scovill is an ogre so egotistical that I look forward the perfidy he will dream up next. (Think Snidley Whiplash, arch foe of Dudley Do-Right.) Eaton’s intervention and his required treatment have only added cocaine addiction to his other engaging traits; certainly attitudes and behavior are unchanged. “At the present moment, deliciously high and overwhelmed with self-worth, Walter started the day his favorite way--spying out his office window in 42 Knollwood and classifying his department colleagues as either disposable goods (to be used and thrown away, like Walmart t-shirts or teaching assistants), inferior goods (good enough for a cheaper school, like Duke or, heaven forbid, a state school), or poor but passable substitutes for quality (in Walter’s opinion, he was the only economist of any value, but it was hard to be a department of one).”

Toman is spot on in her humorous depiction of many academics and campus politics. She creates a beautiful red herring that keeps attention focused away from the murders’ motive and, as in PICKING LEMONS, has C.J. solve the murders in a climactic reveal a la Hercule Poirot. C.J.’s not immediately reporting the two murders and holding her session using Occam’s Razor to identify the killer does require major suspension of non-belief.

But I plan to follow the series. OCCAM’S MURDER is a quick fun read. (B+)
 
WAKING TO MR. DARCY is one of Leenie Brown’s novella variants on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It is available in e-book format. I did not see a publication date.

Charles Bingley and Fitzwilliam Darcy have withdrawn from Netherfield Park in disgust at Caroline Bingley and Louisa Hurst’s bad manners toward Jane and Elizabeth Bennet, to spend a few days in a remote hunting cottage on the estate. It’s November, cold and rainy, and Elizabeth staggers into the cabin, injured. Out walking to escape Mr. Collins, she’s fallen, striking her head and cutting her leg badly. She needs medical assistance which Darcy gives, knowing that by doing so, he will have compromised her reputation and will be honor-bound to marry her. As he tends her and they talk, he tells Elizabeth the full story of George Wickham and the Darcy family, changing her attitude toward himself. Elizabeth finds she’s willing to marry Darcy and confesses her love to him.

Few of the characters from the original are on-stage in WAKING TO MR. DARCY. Several have some important changes. Bingley has a spine. He’s sure of his abiding love for Jane, confident that she loves him, and determined on marrying her. If Caroline doesn’t like it, she can go live with the Hursts. Mary Bennet is intelligent with an inquiring mind, good conversation, and a sense of humor. Mrs. Bennet is venomous to Elizabeth, and Mr. Collins is more toad-like. It’s satisfying when Mr. Bennet ejects him from Longbourn. Darcy proves himself a man of unexpected talents: chopping wood, making tea, sewing up Elizabeth’s leg, washing her dirty clothing, mending her stocking, nursing her as she develops a fever, plus reading Wordsworth and Coleridge beautifully.

All the struggle in WAKING TO MR. DARCY is internal, as both struggle to understand their own and the other’s feelings. They expect opposition to the marriage from both Darcy’a uncle, the Earl, and from Lady Catherine de Bourgh, though it does not materialize.

WAKING TO MR. DARCY is a pleasantly sedate read. (B)
 
Anthea Fraser’s THE TWELVE APOSTLES was originally published in 1999 and reissued in e-book format in 2015. It’s one of her Inspector David Webb mystery series set in Shillingham and neighboring villages in Broadshire, England.

THE TWELVE APOSTLES is a difficult book to review without doing spoilers all over. The plot stretches over 27 years, intertwines past and present, and misleads the reader by playing on mystery-novel preconceptions. The story is slow to develop since Fraser follows her custom of thoroughly developing the new major characters before introducing the problem. The unusual if not unique denouement then seems rushed.

The number of characters greatly exceeds those strictly necessary to carry the story. David Webb has recently been promoted to Detective Superintendent, and his former legman Ken Jackson, now Detective Inspector, comes back to help out. Many characters from earlier books in the series are back, but there’s little change in personalities and relationships. Some dynamics are needed to maintain interest, and including every character from earlier books is not required.

Sense of place is strong. “The town of Steeple Bayliss had grown up in the north side of a chasm carved out by the last Ice Age. A sheer cliff face rose steeply from the banks of the River Darrant, and at its foot some half-dozen cottages nestled into the hillside. The south side had remained uncultivated until the nineteenth century, when it was chosen as the site of Broadshire University, whose grounds sloped more gently down to the river. The chasm itself was spanned by a viaduct, from where was a magnificent view of the river far below, with its gently rocking boats and the permanently moored Barley Mow, a converted grain barge was now a public house.”

I’m in a quandary about what grade to assign THE TWELVE APOSTLES. On one hand, I admire the dexterity with which Fraser misleads the reader all the way up to the amazing denouement. On the other, I’m frustrated by it, at least in part for my being taken in. I do recommend THE TWELVE APOSTLES as something completely different. (B+)
 
REMORSE AND RECONCILIATION is Don H. Mller’s novella variant on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, which he published in e-book format in 2016. It begins on 3 April 1809, just after Fitzwilliam Darcy’s infamous proposal and Elizabeth Bennet’s scalding rejection. Darcy does not write his letter of explanation.

Miller conveys much of the exposition in REMORSE AND RECONCILIATION through entries from journals kept by Darcy and by Elizabeth. The contact between the protagonists that’s necessary to change their opinions is secondhand through sisters Georgiana Darcy and Kitty Bennet. Just after the refused proposal, Georgiana’s companion Mrs. Annesley goes to New York to live with her daughter and recommends that a companion of Georgie’s own age be chosen; Darcy consults the Matlocks. Lady Matlock works with Mrs. Gardiner in a charity Hope House founded by Mrs. Gardiner, who recommends Kitty Bennet. Kitty, after the Bennet family’s unseemly display at the Netherfield ball, had been taken in hand by Elizabeth and now behaves as a well-brought-up young lady. She goes to live at Pemberley, promised a debut with Georgie in 1811 and £15,000 dowry (this, mind, before Darcy has any sense that Elizabeth will ever change her opinion and before Elizabeth believes Darcy’s regard will ever be restored). It’s through Kitty, told by Georgiana, that Elizabeth learns Wickham’s true story; Darcy learns through Georgie, told by Kitty, of Elizabeth ’s changed feelings. With help from friends at all levels, the pair finally acknowledge their love.

REMORSE ANlD RECONCILIATION changes several major characters, most notably Elizabeth and Darcy. Both are much less self-confident than the originals, wimpish, needy. Both discuss their feelings with the servants, dependents, family, and new acquaintances indiscriminately when a frank conversation, which Elizabeth initiates by telling Darcy pointblank she loves him and wants him back, soon resolves their doubts. Elizabeth’s actions remind me of Persuasion’s Anne Elliot going after Captain Wentworth when she learns Louisa Musgrove’s engaged to another man. I appreciate that Bingley finally demonstrates his spine and that Jane is not so quick to forgive him.

Several anachronisms bother me. I doubt if Pemberley, at the height of the Napoleonic Wars, is decorated in Country French style. The verb “enthuse” is an American usage first seen in an 1827 letter, not timely for 1809. The biggest modernism is the relationship between servants and dependents and the gentry. When Elizabeth comes to Pemberley to visit Georgiana and Kitty for two weeks in Darcy’s absence, the housekeeper Mrs. Reynolds shows her all the details of running the house, including the household accounts, and without being asked, advises her about getting Darcy back. Dr. Steward, a college friend of Mr. Darcy, Sr., and longtime Pemberley physician, advises both Darcy and Elizabeth. Darcy addresses him properly but Elizabeth calls him “Steward,” inappropriate for address to an older professional man by a young lady. Even the butler advises Darcy. It’s all too much familiarity.

REMORSE AND RECONCILIATION is pleasant enough, even if it’s almost all talking and writing. (B)
 
BEYOND OAKHAM MOUNT is Sophia Meredith’s novella continuation of her ON OAKHAM MOUNT, part of the Pemberley Departures series. It was published in e-book format in 2016.

BEYOND OAKHAM MOUNT opens with the marriage of Elizabeth Bennet to Fitzwilliam Darcy in St. George’s Hanover Square. Both are blissfully happy despite the refusal of the Earl of Matlock and Lady Catherine de Bourgh to countenance the marriage by attending the wedding. Darcy’s side of the family and most of his aristocratic friends approve, so the two nay-sayers are not missed.

The novella covers the first few months of the newlyweds’ life at Pemberley as they adapt to married life and deal with family crises, mostly Bennet in nature. Lady Catherine expelled Mr. Collins from Hunsford forthwith; since Darcy feels responsible, he bestows the living at Kympton on Collins. He and Mary, who’s confined to bed awaiting her confinement after a difficult pregnancy, are in residence at Pemberley while the rectory is renovated, causing trouble. Bingley and Jane find Netherfield a bit too close to Longbourn and Mrs. Bennet for their comfort, so despite Jane’s imminent confinement, Darcy and Bingley search for an estate near Pemberley, where they will remain through the birth and the renovation of the Bingley estate. This pursuit exposes the men, with dangerous consequences, to Justus Crouch, a syphilitic neighbor whose abandoned estate is up for sale. The Darcys host a family house party that culminates in their first ball for family, friends, and neighbors, at which Darcy’s relatives and the uninvited Caroline Bingley demonstrate their true vulgarity and malice. But never fear, all turns out right.

BEYOND OAKHAM MOUNT is one of the best continuations of Pride ad Prejudice that I’ve read, at least in part because it contains more physical action than most. It is gratifying to see Elizabeth maturing into a young society matron without losing her individuality, especially her fully-intended threat to box Mr. Collins’s ears on the dance floor unless he shuts up. Brava, Eliza! (A-)
 
Robert B. Parker’s THE GODWULF MANUSCRIPT is the first book in his seemingly immortal Spenser series set in Boston. It was published in 1973. Cultural allusions and attitudes of the Seventies date the story, but sense of place is outstanding.

THE GODWULF MANUSCRIPT has many elements I enjoy. Someone steals the illuminated medieval Godwulf Manuscript from the library of a Boston university, holding it for $100,000 ransom. Without the funds to ransom the document, the university hires Spenser to get it back. The Student Committee Against Capitalist Exploitation and its officers Terry Orchard and Dennis Powell may know something about the theft, but that night Powell is killed in a home invasion-type execution and Terry framed for his murder. Investigation reveals Powell’s reputation as a major campus drug dealer specializing in heroin. Roland Orchard hires Spenser to investigate the murder and convince the police that his daughter Terry is innocent. Local crime boss Joe Broz wants all the information Spenser has gathered, even suggesting that the manuscript will soon be returned, but warning Spenser off the case. How do the cases intersect?

Spenser as first person narrator has many traits I admire. He’s honest, professional if somewhat smart-ass, well-read, and he serves justice. He’s a good cook. I am, however, alienated by his treatment of women. Within 24 hours, he has consensual rough sex with Marion Orchard, Terry’s mother, who’s drunk out of her mind, then sex with Terry, who’s traumatized by almost being sexually initiated into the Ceremony of Moloch shortly before. She’s also drunk at the time. While I have no problem with sex in a story, particularly when it isn’t play-by-play-and it is relevant to the plot, I find Spenser’s actions incestuous and victimizing. The sex is gratuitous.

I’m giving up at this point, page 120 of 204. Life’s too short to waste time reading stories I find distasteful. No grade because not finished.
 
Basil Thomson’s RICHARDSON’S FIRST CASE is one of the Golden Age mysteries being reissued by the Dean Street Press in e-book format in 2016, with introductions by Martin Edwards; it was originally published in 1933.

Thomson was praised by contemporary mystery writers including Dorothy L. Sayers. Edwards points out that Thomson was the first to describe accurately the workings of Scotland Yard and to see detection as the product of teamwork by trained police officers rather than a virtuoso performance of an eccentric detective.

That being said, I couldn’t get into RICHARDSON’S FIRST CASE. About all known about PC Richardson is that he’s fresh out of training, eager and ambitious, assigned to D Division of the Metropolitan Police; he’s eager to move into the CID. He’s a Scot. He’s little characterized, with no Christian name. It’s hard to engage with a cipher.

I’ve read several chapters and noted several discrepancies between what Richardson has or hasn’t reported to his superiors at Scotland Yard and between names used for superior officers at the Yard. Scotland Yard’s reliance on the information provided by an interested party, the dead man’s nephew, seems unlikely. I’m just not interested enough to try to figure it all out.

No grade because not finished.
 
HE MADE ME is the second book in Oliver Tidy’s Booker and Cash mystery series set in Dymchurch, on Romney Marsh. David Booker is now the proud owner of a bookshop / coffeeshop, while Jo Cash, let go by the police after she killed two civilian-criminals in self-defense, is a private detective slowly building a clientele. HE MADE ME was published in e-book format in 2016.

Rebecca Swaine approaches Booker and Cash for their joint help. She suspects that her husband Nigel Tate is being blackmailed, and she wants Cash to find the blackmailer. She needs money and wants Booker to sell discreetly books from the library at her home Goldenhurst to raise £10,000. Booker achieves a quick sale, Cash begins her investigation, but Nigel Tate hangs himself in the woods at Goldenhurst. Less than 24 hours later, Rebecca Swaine’s neurotic artist brother Sigismund Swaine, who ives at Goldenhurst with his sister, commits suicide by throwing himself off a gallery at a nearby medieval church; his dying words are, “He made me.” There is no evidence of foul play in either death. Tate had recently lost his job as an investment consultant, was under investigation for insider trading, and had opened an art gallery Tate’s Modern in London some months before, all without telling his wife. Sigismund had painted extensively for the gallery. Now someone follows Booker and Cash and kidnaps Rebecca Swaine for their money back--Nigel’s briefcase found at the site of Sigismund’s death contained £100,000 in used £20 notes. What is going on, and who’s involved?

I like much about this series. Characterization is strong. Booker and Cash are both individual, very different but a combination in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Jo Cash is strong, professional, unsentimental; Booker is more intuitive, more creative, more apt to see people and events in shades of gray. Booker serves as first person narrator with a conversational, storytelling voice and self-deprecating humor. Other characters are well developed, though the number exceeds those strictly necessary to carry the story.

Sense of place is outstanding. Tidy excels at using bits of physical description and history to provide telling vignettes: “Romney Marsh was enjoying a bit of unseasonal sunshine. The calm after the storm in this case. You couldn’t live on the Marsh without sooner or later realising that the place enjoyed its own micro-climate and mostly it was the exact opposite of what the rest of Kent was either basking in or drowning in. I’m not saying it snowed in July. But as a native of the place I was used to standing on the beach at Dymchurch in a T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops while dark and petulant storm clouds, thunder and lightning, prowled around the hills at Lympne, like some mythical beast scared of crossing an invisible line. The magic of Romney Marsh.”

My complaint about HE MADE ME involves the plot structure, specifically the handing of the reveal. It comes so early that the following chapters are definitely anticlimax. It is not presented directly but by Booker’s telling Cash what he’s been told by Lewis Edwards, an art dealer involved with Tate and Sigismund in the gallery. Other than dashing around in Booker’s new black Range Rover, there’s little physical action. The full story of the gallery emerges only in the epilogue.

HE MADE ME is definitely worth the time. (B+)
 
THE BALL AT MERYTON is Bronwen Chisholm’s novella variant on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, published in e-book format in 2014.

THE BALL AT MERYTON opens with Elizabeth Bennet’s overhearing Fitzwilliam Darcy’s comment about her being “only tolerable”; upset, she leaves the assembly rooms for fresh air to recover her hurt feelings, only to be attacked by a would-be rapist. Darcy, who realizes she’d overhead him and who’s desperate to escape the heat, crowd, and Caroline Bingley, also seeks fresh air just in time to assist the fleeing Elizabeth. Her gown torn and shoulder scratched, onlookers see Darcy take her away in the Netherfield carriage. Her reputation is compromised. As a man of honor, he’s morally bound to marry her. Mr. Bennet insists on Darcy and Elizabeth coming to know each other before any proposal is made, since he hopes marriage may not be necessary. As the couple becomes acquainted, they find genuine love and respect for each other and welcome their upcoming wedding. William Collins and George Wickham show up, both with bad intentions; Lady Catherine de Bourgh arrives to announce her displeasure at Darcy’s betrothal, only to be told off thoroughly by Mrs. Bennet. It’s pleasing when Wickham’s karma finally kicks in.

Both Darcy and Elizabeth are less self-confident than Austen’s originals. Darcy feels out-shown by handsome, charming Colonel Fitzwilliam; Elizabeth feels herself plain in comparison with Jane’s beauty. It’s not strictly Austen, but it is satisfying that Elizabeth finds Lydia and Wickham in a compromising situation at the ball at Netherfield and slaps both soundly. Other major characters are essentially unchanged.

THE BALL AT MERYTON has enough physical action that it deserves to be a full-length novel. The assault, subsequent ostracism of the Bennets by Meryton society, Lady Catherine’s opposition to the marriage, Collins’s pomposity, and Wickham’s arrival and subsequent behavior in Meryton--all are sketched but deserve fuller development. Much of the dialogue is straight out of Austen, sometimes with the primary speaker changed from the original.

I caught two questionable allusions. When Elizabeth’s attacker is arrested, he is tried at the Old Bailey in London. During Austen’s time, trial for the Meryton assault would be held at the Hertfordshire Court of Quarter Sessions or at the Hertfordshire Assizes; the Old Bailey was the local court for the City of London and the surrounding area. It was not until the time of the trial of the poisoner William Palmer that major cases were transferred there from the other circuits. The night before Darcy’s wedding, Bingley produces a bottle of the finest French port in celebration. At this time, however, fine port was the product of the region around Oporto, Portugal.

THE BALL AT MERYTON is one of the best fan fiction retellings of Pride and Prejudice that I’ve read. (A-)
 
Nathan Dylan Goodwin’s THE LOST ANCESTOR is the second book in his Forensic Genealogist series featuring Morton Farrier. It’s set in Kent near the White Cliffs between Dead and Dover. It was published in e-book format in 2014.

Ray Mercer’s grandmother Edith Mercer Leyden reared him after his father died in a V-1 attack and his mother committed to a mental institution. The abiding question in Edith’s life was what became of her older twin sister Mary Mercer who disappeared 12 April 1911; the only contact in all the years after was Mary’s attending Edith’s funeral in 1962, though Ray had not known of her presence at the time. Despite a lifetime of competent genealogical research, Ray found no other trace of her, and now he’s ill with stage four pancreatic cancer. He hires Morton Farrier to find Mary Mercer. She’d worked as a chambermaid at Blackfriars House, Winchelsea, Kent, the ancestral home of the Earl of Rothborne; she’d left Blackfriars for her half-day off and simply disappeared. What happened to her?

I generally enjoy mysteries with a genealogy / history problem. However, I can’t get into THE LOST ANCESTOR, so I’m giving up at twenty percent. The story line moves between the present and Farrier’s research, most of it done on Internet from his study at home, and the events of 1911, beginning with Mary’s first day on the job in early January. There’s little physical action except for Mary’s drudgery.

Point of view is limited third person through Farrier and Mary, with Mary’s story making up about two-thirds so far. It is much more Upstairs, Downstairs (with emphasis on the downstairs) or Downton Abbey than a mystery, though there is some foreshadowing about Mary’s disappearance and what caused it. Movement between times is not explained other than a 1911 date opening each chapter in Mary’s story. The two story lines are thus far connected only by the character of Mary Mercer.

Mary Mercer is the reason I can’t get into THE LOST ANCESTOR. She’s at once brash, self-confident, ambitious, romantically infatuated with Lord Cecil Manfield, yet when she realizes her mistake on the first day, she doesn’t quit but remains on at Blackfriars, trying to do work for which she’s clearly unsuited physically and temperamentally. She goes from usurping the job meant for Edith to total wimphood in keeping it, with no explanation from Goodwin. I find Mary’s ignorance about the demands of the job improbable. Both her mother and her grandmother had been in service all their lives, making it unlikely that Mary would not know the level of drudgery and the servants’ social structure.

Mary makes a habit while turning down Cecil Mansfield’s bed each evening, to lie upon it momentarily and daydream about marriage to him; she’s caught by a delegation of family, the housekeeper, and the butler. Nothing happens to her. This is where I quit. I believe that in 1911, such lese majeste would bring instant dismissal without a character.

No grade because not finished.
 
THE HONORABLE MR. DARCY is the first in Jennifer Joy’s Meryton Mystery series, published in e-book format in 2016. It is a novel-length variant of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

At the Netherfield ball, Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy find themselves by accident in the library together, locked in by the housekeeper. If their innocent presence together becomes known, Elizabeth’s reputation will be ruined; social convention will require their marriage or their ostracism. Darcy escapes through the library window to re-enter the house as if from a walk to in the garden, only to be arrested before morning for the murder of Lieutenant George Wickham. Lieutenant Denny had seen Darcy storm out of Wickham’s tent after a violent quarrel earlier in the day. Wickham’d been shot at midnight, when Darcy was locked in with Elizabeth, but to use her alibi would guarantee that she’d be forced to marry him against her wishes. Feeling against Darcy runs so high in Meryton that he’s arrested and confined to Colonel Forster’s house for his own safety. The local magistrate Mr. Stallard, Colonel Forster, and Constable Tanner have four days to solve the murder before the inquest, when Darcy will face a hostile Meryton coroner’s jury. Elizabeth, Bingley, Mr. Collins, Darcy himself, as well as the officials, look for the killer and discover many secrets, both past and present, before solving the case.

Joy constructs the plot well. Foreshadowing of the killer’s identity and motive is subtle but realistic. Secondary story lines involve Mrs. Yeats, a middle-aged governess hired to bring appropriate behavior and manners to the younger Bennet girls and an attempt to blackmail Darcy into marriage (no, it’s not Caroline Bingley, who’s her usual charming self). Action covers only four days, so the story advances rapidly.

Most Austen characters are reasonably true to the originals. Darcy’s already changed his attitude toward Elizabeth before the ball, but Elizabeth goes from her full-on disdain for Darcy to love in only four days, which seems too quick to be realistic. Joy’s characters are believable.

THE HONORABLE MR. DARCY has little sense of place (indeed, as does Austen’s original). There are some anachronistic-sounding expressions for which I haven’t found a date of origin: Darcy set up to “take the fall” for Wickham’s murder; Mr. Bennet “doesn’t give a frog’s fart.” Still, it’s easy to suspend disbelief and relax into the story. (A-)
 
LOVE LETTERS FROM MR. DARCY is J. Dawn King’s fan fiction novella based on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It was published in e-book format in 2016.

LOVE LETTERS FROM MR. DARCY begins at Hunsford the day after Elizabeth Bennet refuses Fitzwilliam Darcy’s insulting marriage proposal. She accepts but refuses to read his explanatory letter, so he tells her face to face about his interference between Charles Bingley and Jane and about his history with Wickham, even to the attempted elopement at Ramsgate but without specifying that the girl involved was Georgiana. Darcy asks and is granted the opportunity for Elizabeth to get to know him as a friend. The body of LOVE LETTERS FROM MR. DARCY consists in this endeavor, which rapidly changes to courtship, along with token opposition from Lady Catherine de Bourgh and much angst from Elizabeth.

Elizabeth’s emotions are more ambivalent than in the original. Her decision that Darcy stay away from her for thirty days is hardly followed when he sends her a token gift and a one-word note each day. It seems unlikely that Mr. Bennet would permit this since they are not engaged or that Mrs. Bennet does not trumpet the courtship all over Hertfordshire. Lady Catherine’s obsession about Darcy’s marrying Anne dies too quickly to be believable. Anne is revealed as very much her mother’s daughter--arrogant, self-centered, imperative. Other changes from the original seem gratuitous, intended to provide a happy ending for all the positive characters. Even foolish Mr. Collins is redeemed by his adoration and tender care of Charlotte, whose advice he seeks and follows.

A couple of things bothered me in LOVE LETTERS FROM MR. DARCY. One is Elizabeth’s supposedly not knowing of Darcy’s “engagement” to Anne de Bourgh until after she’s agreed to developing a friendship with Darcy. With Mr. Collins’s incessant chatter about the doings at Rosings, it’s doubtful that Elizabeth hadn’t heard of it. Another is an anachronism. Darcy is referred to repeatedly as writing his letters to Elizabeth on parchment. Parchment is prepared and stretched animal skin used by Austen’s time almost exclusively for official documents such as diplomas and licenses. Darcy would have used high rag-content paper.

LOVE LETTERS FROM MR. DARCY is a pleasant quick read but nothing very original. (C)
 
REDBONE: MONEY, MALICE, AND MURDER IN ATLANTA is Ron Stodghill’s account of the August 1996 murder of millionaire IT entrepreneur Lance Herndon. founder and owner of Access, Inc., at one time the largest black computer consulting firm in the Southeast. It was published in 2007.

Lance Herndon seemed to have it all. He was a self-made millionaire dealing with the black business and social elite of Atlanta, but “...he aimed at courting not the city’s old guard but what Lance liked to call ‘the beautiful people’--his real contemporaries--that crowd of young, fashionable black professionals, the athletes, entertainers, and entrepreneurs and all their various groupies who gave Atlanta’s nightlife its pulse. They were his social soul mates... They were the high-rolling, Gucci-wearing cats and their stiletto-heeled women who fancied the dramatic over the mundane, who on other evening pulled up to Atlanta Nights or Mr. Vee’s or The Parrot in their chromed-out Lamborghinis and Aston Martins, where hulking nylon-shirted goons with six-pack abs rushed the car to spirit them into perfume-scented VIP heaven.” (8-9) Herndon had been married three times and fathered one son; he was a relentless womanizer, openly juggling a harem of female friends, employees, and mistresses. He spent generously and compulsively but did not keep his business up to date and, ironically, could not have met the company payroll due the day his body was discovered. Lack of physical evidence dragged the investigation out for six years before his accused killer was brought to trial and found guilty. An appeal ordering a retrial, then a retrial resulting in a hung jury dragged on until September 2004 when she finally pled guilty to a lesser charge and received a ten-year prison sentence.

***SPOILERS***

The crime part of REDBONE: MONEY, MALICE, AND MURDER IN ATLANTA disappointed me. As an Amazon reviewer commented, it seemed more a newspaper account than an in-depth study of any of the people, including Herndon. Information on the investigation is very general, with much left unexplained. Why had Lance not bought Dionne Baugh a laptop computer, making the one stolen from his office key evidence against her? Why was longtime mistress Lacey Banks’s boyfriend Jimmy Sweet Turner never questioned? How much follow-up was done on persistent rumors about Herndon’s possible homosexuality / bisexuality? To what extent was Lance’s attempt to force himself into the Atlanta hip-hop music scene opposed, and by whom? The list is long.

I also have problems with the editing of REDBONE: MONEY, MALICE, AND t IN ATLANTA. There are no index, absolutely no notes to specific information, no bibliography, and no list of characters. A scorecard of Herndon’s women is definitely needed. “Dental molding” involves teeth; the molding on houses is “dentil.” Choice of photographs is curious. Lance Herndon is the only member of his family pictured (twice), with none of his parents, the grandparents who shaped his life, his three wives, or his son. While there are two glamor shots each of mistresses Lacey Banks and Kathi Collins, other important women in his life, e.g. Brandy West and Zonya Adams, are not shown. The only photos of Dionne Baugh are her Georgia driver’s license and her prison mug shot. None are included of any of the investigators, lawyers, judges, or prosecutors.

The two most intriguing parts of REDBONE: MONEY, MALICE, AND MURDER IN ATLANTA are referred to in passing without much discussion. One is the dichotomy between the black elite who during the mid-twentieth century made Atlanta into the economic capital of the Southeast, for whom prestige means achievement and heritage, and Herndon’s “beautiful people,” most of whom seem transient, famous for being famous.

The second is implied in the term “Redbone,” used by his father Russell Herndon to describe Lance’s taste in women. Wiki gives the modern definition of “Redbone” as referring to a person of mixed ethnicity, generally defined as a tri-racial combination of African-American, Native American, and Caucasian. During most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, “Redbone” was a derogatory term. It’s used in REDBONE to identify a woman with pale skin, “good” (non-kinky) hair, sharp features, and thin lips: in other words, a woman who does not look Negroid. This whole question of black on black racism is fascinating.

If you want the gritty details of crime, investigation, and trial, REDBONE: MONEY, MALICE, AND MURDER IN ATLANTA may be a disappointment. If you’d enjoy a snapshot of a unique city at a particular moment in time, it’s well worth a read. Crime novel (D); Atlanta sketch (B).
 
THE TEN-MILE TRIALS is the eighth book in Elizabeth Gunn’s police procedural mystery series featuring Captain Jake Hines, head of the Investigative Division of the Rutherford, Minnesota, Police Department. It was published in 2009. This series is best read in order, though the books function well as stand-alones.

Jake faces two situations as THE TEN-MILE TRIALS opens. As Rutherford’s tax base erodes, the police department faces a mandatory twenty-percent budget cut with loss of two detectives at a time when drug-related crimes is rising. Jake must adjust to changes in his personal routines as wife Trudy returns to work after maternity leave for the birth of their son Ben. The major crime problem is a series of burglaries, most of them daytime, in which upscale homes are targeted, entered and swiftly robbed of only portable and expensive items. Then a domestic disturbance call to a Marvin Street rental house reveals a beaten woman and terrorized child, a high-end methamphetamine lab under construction upstairs, a marijuana-growing setup and a beaten, stabbed, and shot unidentified man in the garage. What is happening in Rutherford?

Characterization is effective. Jake Hines, first person narrator, possesses a storytelling style and a sense of humor. “The dog [K-9 Sam] was all business now, sniffing the air in a wide herring-bone pattern that grew narrower as he approached the attached garage on the far side of the house. As he reached the cement apron in front of the garage, the animal went noisily berserk. He flung himself at the big overhead door, scratching and barking at the top of his lungs. He was one big, bad, dangerous dog, he wanted us all to understand, and...he was going to tear open the garage and eat its contents. I believed him--he sounded very sincere.” (15) Gunn gives Jake a strong marriage and a loving relationship with Maxine Daley, the foster mother who influenced him most, with enough personal detail to make them seem real people. His professional colleagues are individual and believable.

Gunn plays fair with providing information as the police uncover it, and she’s realistic in showing police work as the sum of many people’s efforts, not the work of a lone-wolf detective. The plot is nicely structured with building action and a well-placed, suspenseful climax, all concentrated in 186 pages.

Sense of place is outstanding. “That Friday started out like most June mornings in Minnesota, somewhere between extra pleasant and perfect. The first cutting of hay across the road from my house showed a sparkle of dew as I drove by, and smelled like bee heaven. Red-winged blackbirds flouted themselves in the ditches along the highway, and a meadowlark in a nearby pasture promised his mate great sex if she’d just come home. To confirm that all the planets were lined up right, somebody had made a fresh pot of coffee in the breakroom and I got to it ahead of most of my comrades in the Rutherford Police Department. I carried a cup to my desk feeling smugly content. Minnesota is usually quick to punish undue optimism, so the rest of that day may be partly my fault.” (1)

I highly recommend both the Jake Hines series and THE TEN-MILE TRIALS. (A)
 
THE GALLANT VICAR is Barbara Slverstone’s fan fiction variant of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, set at Hunsford beginning at Darcy’s inept proposal to Elizabeth Bennet. It was published in e-book format in 2015.

Reverend Collins, always unstable and prone to emotional extremes, suffers a complete mental breakdown after ejecting Elizabeth Bennet from the parsonage because she’d entered the churchyard against his orders. He’s confined in London at White Chapel Sanatorium, his condition considered hopeless. Elizabeth returns to Hunsford with Mary Bennet to assist Charlotte in vacating the living, Lady Catherine generously giving her two days’ notice for her complete removal. Charlotte falls over a packed trunk, seriously injures her back, and must remain at Hunsford until she can travel. A new vicar Francis Martel is installed with unseemly haste. He speaks frankly with Darcy, who’s remained at Rosings in turmoil over Elizabeth, and makes it clear that he’s no legitimate clergyman. Physically attractive, charming, Martel unaccountably goes after Elizabeth Bennet. Who is Martel, and what is he up to?

THE GALLANT VICAR is much more modern than Austen in tone, with major anachronisms. A factor in Collins’s mental break is his fear of contamination of the parsonage by disease-causing germs from the church graveyard. Serious research on the germ theory of disease did not begin until the 1850s with the work of Pasteur and Koch, and it was not confirmed until the 1880s. Use of the term “sanatorium” dates to the mid-nineteenth century; Mr. Collins would have been committed to an asylum.

Characters are much changed. Darcy, petulant and immature, never tells Elizabeth the full story of his family’s relationship with George Wickham, and botches every conversation with her. Lady Catherine insists on even more deference in Silverstone’s telling, while Mrs. Bennet becomes a veritable harpy toward Elizabeth. Elizabeth cherishes her doubts about Darcy even as she openly admits to herself her attraction to him, and she’s initially as gullible about Martel as about Wickham. She’s superstitious, seeing omens and messages in churchyard epitaphs, and admits to doubts of faith while speculating on serving the Lord as Martel’s wife. It’s doubtful that Martel, Darcy, and Elizabeth would themselves physically work all day righting gravestones, cutting grass, and clearing weeds. Mary Bennet is sensible and efficient, though her marrying a farmer / tenant on the Rosings estate Hugh Johnston seems socially improbable.

THE GALLANT VICAR needs editing. Problems in word choice include character “assignation” instead of “assassination.” In human reproduction, a man begets while a woman conceives. No wonder Mr. Bennet couldn’t “conceive” a son.

THE GALLANT VICAR does contain bits of foreshadowing that could have made for interesting plot developments. After Darcy refuses his demand for the Kympton living to be restored, George Wickham is a frequent visitor at Rosings, charming both Lady Catherine and Anne de Bpurgh. There is a distinct family resemblance between Martel and Darcy not explained by Martel’s back story, which could also open up details of appointment of clergy in the Church of England and the presence of French individuals in England during the Napoleonic Wars. As written, THE GALLANT VICAR is below average. (C-/D+)
 
MAMA GETS TRASHED is the fifth book in Deborah Sharp’s cozy mystery series set in Himmarshee, Florida, featuring Mace Bauer, her Mama Rosalee, and Mace’s sisters Maddie and Marty. It was published in 2013.

At the town dump where Mace and her Mama search for Mama’s accidentally discarded wedding band, they discover the dominatrix-clothed body of librarian Camilla Law, a work colleague of sister Marty. Mace’s fiance, homicide detective Carlos Martinez, asks her to stay out of the investigation, and she at first complies. She’s worried over older sister Maddie, who’s concluded that husband Kenny is cheating on her. Since the recent election of newcomer “Big Bill” Graf as mayor of Himmarshee, things have been changing in town. He’s negotiating with out-of-town developers to build a subdivision along Himmarshee Creek, endangering the wildlife park and rehab center where Mace works. The Himmarshee Links Country Club has a new class of clientele, with indications that all the swinging may not involve golf clubs. What is going on, and who’s involved?

Somehow MAMA GETS TRASHED doesn’t quite come together for me. Mace’s role as first person narrator reveals her commitment phobia and intricate, though believable family dynamics that dominate her thoughts as much as the murder. She discloses nothing to Carlos of what she discovers as she’s trying to locate Kenny and his lover, even though she knows she’s risking her engagement. She believes everything she’s told, even when discrepancies appear; she does no backgrounding checking, even to google the newcomers. She puts herself in dangerous situations with no back-up, often without anyone knowing where she is, and fails to report being shot at and being chased to the police. There’s even the cliche of a dying cellphone battery when she needs to phone the police.

Foreshadowing is strong enough to make most of the plot self-evident, to the point that it undermines the surprise twist in the denouement. Sharp gives no details of the police investigation as Carlos rightly refuses to discuss it with Mace. It is clear, however, when he arrives at Mace’s confrontation with the killer, he had already solved the case himself. Forensics are not involved in the case.

Sense of place is the strongest element in MAMA GETS TRASHED, though it is not as pronounced as in earlier books in the series. Sharp is good at using atmosphere to convey character: “I inhaled the smell of the swamp, Black muck, tannic water and the woodsy scent of cypress trees. A gator lolled on the bank of Himmarshee Creek, his body half-hidden in fire flag and duck potato plants. A squirrel sat high on a branch in a laurel oak tree, scolding me as I traversed the path below. With a wild flapping of black-tipped wings, two wood storks rose from a still pool of dark water beside the boardwalk that led to the office of Himmarshee Park. It felt like home.” (34)

MAMA GETS TRASHED is less satisfying than other books in the series. (C+)
 
GEORGIANA DARCY, MATCHMAKER is another of Bronwen Chisholm’s variations on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It was published in e-book format in 2016.

Georgiana Darcy is the first person narrator of the story, convinced from her brother’s letters that he cares for Elizabeth Bennet and determined to bring them together. She travels to Netherfield to meet Elizabeth, arriving in Meryton the same day that George Wickham joins the militia there. She befriends the Bennet girls, except for the jealous Lydia, and actively promotes the change in Darcy’s manners and Elizabeth’s attitude. Things go well until the ball at Netherfield, during which Mary King disappears with Wickham, who’d not attended; Lydia Bennet, who’d been forbidden the ball by Mr. Bennet as punishment for a slight against Georgiana, goes missing from Longbourn, also with Wickham. Can the girls be recovered without widespread scandal?

Georgiana is the focus of GEORGIANA DARCY, MATCHMAKER, an annoying teenaged combination of maturity and childishness. Encouraged by her brother, she’s become more self-confident and assertive since her misadventure with Wickham at Ramsgate. She acts on her belief about Darcy and Elizabeth; she defends herself verbally against Caroline Bingley, Lydia, and Lady Catherine. At the other extreme, when told she’s in danger of abduction by Wickham. who’s still after her £30,000 and revenge, when she’s told by Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam to stay indoors at Netherfield and in the company of others for her own safety, Georgiana repeatedly leaves the house, even going with Elizabeth into woods near Longbourn to investigate a tenant’s empty home where the runaways may be hiding. Her actions endanger herself and make the men’s task of finding Wickham more difficult. Her excuse is that she doesn’t like not knowing what’s happening. Her eavesdropping and willingness to manipulate (Darcy especially) show her to be truly Lady Catherine’s niece.

***POSSIBLE SPOILERS***

Other characters are less changed, though Darcy is far more doting enabler in dealing with Georgiana than a socially-conscious elder brother and guardian. Bingley asks and receives permission to marry Jane Bennet before he leaves for London. Mary Bennet clearly shows Mrs. Bennet’s mentality in her winning of Mr. Collins’s hand. Mr. Bennet finally assumes leadership of his family. Most interesting of the few new introductions is Captain John Jacobs, younger son of the Earl of Suthridge and Colonel Fitzwilliam’s subordinate who’s been observing Wickham on the Colonel’s orders.

GEORGIANA DARCY, MATCHMAKER, could have used another close editing before publication. The book is longer than the effective story. Word choice and usage need work. When agreeing with a speaker’s premise, the correct expression is “hear, hear” (shortened form of “hear him” used first to signify approval in Parliament). “Eschewing” means that a person avoids or refuses to participate; it does not mean to damage or to disarray something (Darcy’s neckcloth). Case of a personal pronoun used to emphasize nouns (for example, “of we the women”) follows the usage of the noun--women as the object of a preposition is objective case and requires “us.” There is no apostrophe in a plural noun unless the noun is also possessive case. “Raucous” is an adjective, not a noun; noun form is “raucousness” or perhaps informally “ruckus.”

Don’t get me wrong, GEORGIANA DARCY, MATCHMAKER, is one of the best Austen fan fiction pieces I’ve read. It just needs polishing to reach its full potential. (A-)
 
“The Adventure of the Ancient Gods” is a short story in Ralph E. Vaughan’s anthology SHERLOCK HOLMES: CTHULHU MYTHOS ADVENTURES. The story was originally published in 1983, republished several times, then revised and included in the e-book anthology published in 2015. All of the collected stories reflect the influence of H. P. Lovecraft.

Sherlock Holmes, retired from active practice as a private investigator, is traveling in New England, when he is consulted by Martin Phillips, retired professor of linguistics and comparative mythology at Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts. Phillips is much upset by the disappearance some two months before of his younger cousin Carter Randolph. Randolph is independently wealthy, a scholar investigating ancient myths, especially those dealing with ancient gods, believing many of them originated in historical fact. He’s visited and extensively corresponded with writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft, one of whose topics is the Cthulhu Myth. Police and private investigators have found no trace of Randolph nor signs of foul play, but now Phillips is convinced he’s being followed. Holmes agrees to find out what became of Randolph.

Martin Phillips is the first person narrator of “The Adventure of the Ancient Gods.” His attitude toward Holmes and his narrative style are reminiscent of Watson, to whom Holmes pays gracious tribute. Holmes is faithful to Conan Doyle’s original, except that he’s willing to admit there may be forces and beings in the universe beyond man’s 1927 knowledge.

Vaughan is good with atmospheric description. “[Enoch Bowen] raised his voice, chanting in an unknown language. The words were picked up and intoned by fifty guttural, semi-human voices. He raised his arms and his tone, his chanting becoming more fevered. The air, the ground, the sea all seemed to be throbbing in time with their voices, as if the world itself was taking up the chant, calling to something beyond the limits of this world... The sky was beginning to break up, as if ready to splinter into a million shards like a broken window... Something from...from Outside was trying to break into this world. At the same time, something monstrously hideous was rising up from the benighted waters of the Atlantic. It was if all the screaming nightmares of humanity had gathered into one mountain of heaving scaly flesh.” (26-7)

“The Adventure of the Ancient Gods” is well done. (A-)
 
“The Whitechapel Terror” is a short story in Ralph E. Vaughan’s anthology SHERLOCK HOLMES: CTHULHU MYTHOS ADVENTURES, published in e-book format in 2015. The stories in the collection all involve the ancient gods invoked by H. P. Lovecraft.

In 1889, the year after Jack the Ripper’s reign of terror concluded, Inspector Gregson of Scotland Yard comes to Sherlock Holmes to solve eleven seemingly- impossible disappearances, two of them of police constables, from the streets of Whitechapel. Scotland Yard has kept the abductions secret, but how long before the newspapers make the connections and public panic ensues? Sherrington, a wealthy young scholar, occultist, and man about town much interested in the Cthulhu Mythos, and Brigadier General James Wellington Knight, an elderly adventurer who’s been everywhere and done everything, use their arcane knowledge to help Holmes identify the cause of the disappearances.

The two new introductions are intriguing. Sherrington in many ways resembles Bertie Wooster, with hints of Jeeves in his manservant Giles; the type is common in many novels of the Twenties and Thirties. He doesn’t take himself too seriously, and sections revealed from his point of view often have humorous elements. General Knight is a tough old bird, physically strong, afraid of nothing, who doesn’t suffer fools gladly. He’s what Holmes will be in old age.

Holmes explains his own thought process behind his identification of why people have going missing: “The nature of the Whitechapel abductions precludes any human agency or the use of some sort of mechanical device, and there is no natural or electrical force that could account for them either. Therefore, it becomes clear we are dealing with some sort of organic entity, a beast, shall we say. It must be a creature able to exist in the riverine system beneath the city and hunt in a very specific way. No known animal fulfills all the criteria requires, so, quod erat demonstrandum, it must be an unknown animal. Perhaps it is not a young Shudde M’ell, but it will do until a better candidate is nominated.” (43)

Tone and plot structure echo Conan Doyle’s original stories. Vaughan’s ability to evoke atmosphere fits his subject well: “...the carriage rumbled to a stop at the narrow mouth of an alley marked by an n surmounted by a carving weathered to unrecognizability. A black night surrounded them as they exited the carriage and even blacker buildings rose around them, their monolithic darkness unrelieved by even the slightest flicker of light. A thin mist flowed through the murky lanes, and the silence of the night was broken only by the soft murmur of flowing water and the distant tones of dull iron bells slowly tolling.” (48)

“The Whitechapel Terror” is a neat use of cryptozoology in fiction. (A-)
 
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