Readingomnivore Reviews

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“Pemberley’s Christmas Ghost” is K. Scott Wood’s holiday variant on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It’s set the second Christmas after the marriage of Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth Bennet Darcy. It’s available as a free or inexpensive e-book.

****SPOILERS, FOR SURE****

Usually if a book fails to engage me or if I find something that offends my sensibilities, I simply don’t finish it. Occasionally, however, I do persist. Sometimes it’s because an element of the story appeals, sometimes hope for improvement keeps me reading, but sometimes it’s to see just how bad the story can get. “Pemberley’s Christmas Ghost” unfortunately falls in this latter category.

The premise has potential. A crowded household means that the Blue Room at Pemberley must be used as a guest chamber. It’s supposedly haunted by the ghost of a Tudor woman who died there after the execution of her lover; during the Twelve Days of Christmas, her spirit observes couples who occupy the room and either blesses or curses them based on the strength and purity of their love. The Darcys plan to rotate the married couples through the Blue Room as a test. No problem there--good openings for humor, interesting character development beyond the canon, and suspenseful manifestations.

Editorial problems are numerous. For one thing, the Bennet name is spelled “Bennett” consistently. Punctuation and paragraphing are hinky in places. As a practical matter, guests at a house party would have the same bed chamber throughout their stay. Anachronisms include the serving of dinners in modern courses rather than those of the Regency period. Mrs. Bennet refers to the recent publication of that new novel Northanger Abbey. The Darcys and their guests (including Mr. and Mrs. Collins) do not attend church services at any point during the holidays. Pemberley becomes an easy carriage ride distance from Hertfordshire. I could go on.

What I dislike most is the gross change in Austen’s characters. Darcy and Elizabeth, planning on Christmas alone at Pemberley, make little attempt to discourage Mrs. Bennet’s descent with a literal houseful of guests. The invitation to the Collinses, meant to annoy her, is their token resistance. They share a malicious glee at the prospect of the ghost cursing the Collinses or the Wickhams. Uncle Gardiner is a sot who passes out in the wine cellar and steals two trunks filled with bottles of wine when he and Mrs. Gardiner leave. Mr. Collins practices near celibacy after three years of marriage; he’s a butterfly collector who brings his net with him, apparently expecting to catch insects in Derbyshire in December. He’s cursed by the ghost because, in making love to his wife, he kept his nightcap on. (Shades of The Full Monty!) George and Lydia Wickham flaunt themselves as sexual athletes; they eavesdrop on the Collinses and report on Mr. Collins’s prowess to the other guests. Charles Bingley is a fool who thinks Wordsworth is a modern painter and, when told to eat with gusto, asks “who’s Gusto?” Kitty Bennet and Caroline Bingley are secretly lesbian lovers who exchanged vows in a romantic wood and now live together, blissfully happy, in a cottage. Wood mostly ignores Jane Bingley, Mrs. Collins, Mrs. Gardiner, and Mary Bennet. Georgiana Darcy is omitted entirely. Wickham and Lydia, Kitty and Caroline, and especially Mrs. Bennet repeatedly speak at meals in mixed company and the presence of Mary Bennet in sexual double entendres.

While Mrs. Bennet has never been IMO a pleasant character, Wood makes her a grotesque. In the habit of frequently dropping in at Pemberley uninvited and unannounced, she lays out her plans for the Darcys’ entertainment of the family. The guests from Longbourn arrive before daylight, and Mrs. Bennet openly queries if the Darcys’ delay in greeting guests is caused by their indulging in morning sex. She announces to everyone at table that Mr. Bennet’s poor health interferes with his ability to perform his husbandly duties, saying that he has a painful rash on his genitalia. She embarrasses Collins frightfully when she lasciviously describes eating raw oysters in terms equally applicable to oral sex. She asks Darcy to exfoliate her feet with pumice and Elizabeth to examine Mr. Bennet’s rash. Jane Austen’s Mrs. Bennet doesn’t deserve this treatment.

I repeat an old teachers’ joke when I say that I give “Pemberley’s Christmas Ghost” a grade of G, because it’s not good enough to deserve an F.

 

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TO FORGET: DARCY’S LONDON CHRISTMAS is Maria Grace’s novella variant on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice published in 2015.

Grace sets the story in December 1812 when Elizabeth Bennet Darcy asks her husband to tell her about the previous Christmas, his last as a bachelor; Darcy reveals influences from childhood that shaped his adult attitudes as well as filling in details of daily activities as he tried in vain to forget Elizabeth Bennet.

I don’t like Grace’s take on Darcy. Grace’s Darcy is more socially awkward, hostile in company, than the original, certain that he’s the focus of Society gossip about his marriage prospects. He’s paranoid about newspaper gossip. He accepts the interference of his Fitzwilliam relatives Lord and Lady Matlock, who are determined to see him married that Season, though it’s none of their business. Lord Matlock may be head of the Fitzwilliam family, but Fitzwilliam Darcy is himself the head of the Darcy family. Until Caroline Bingley asks his help to conceal Jane Bennet’s presence in London from her brother, Darcy has no idea of Caroline’s obsession with marrying him. Grace makes Darcy a Mama’s boy, ruled by her advice and ideas about duty and goodness. It is not until he realizes that his mother would have approved of Elizabeth that he decides to overlook her lack of dowry and connections and the existence of her vulgar family. End of story.

Changing the point of view to focus on Darcy is not a new variant. However, the Darcy in TO FORGET: DARCY’S LONDON CHRISTMAS is a different creature from Austen’s strong self-confident man. (C)

 

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“The Work of an Instant” is Jennifer Becton’s short story in the anthology HOLIDAYS WITH JANE: CHRISTMAS CHEER, a collection of modern-day adaptations based on works by Jane Austen. It was published in e-book format in 2014. “The Work of an Instant” is based on Persuasion, Austen’s last completed novel, with allusion to Mansfield Park (the Mansfield Perk coffee shop in Charleston) and to Pride and Prejudice (Dr. William Cousins, who bears a striking resemblance to Mr. Collins).

Anne Elliot had been engaged to young US Navy officer Frederick Wentworth the summer before she began medical school; she was intent on earn her degree and establishing her career, and she couldn’t face the long separations caused by his career. She broke their engagement. Seven years later, Frederick shows up at Mansfield Perk, He’s a Lieutenant Commander, last posted on SS Kellynch, a guided missile destroyer that’s arrived in port for the holidays. Louisa, a flirtatious young nurse in Anne’s party, invites him and his companions Lieutenant Harville and Lieutenant Benwick to the Nurses’ Christmas Ball at the Uppercross Ballroom, where Frederick overhears Anne’s regret that she hadn’t had the courage to follow her heart. Can there be a happy ending for them after all?

A pleasant retelling, updated mainly by Frederick texting his message of continuing love to Anne, though with a fairy-tale, “magic of Christmas” overtone. Camo Santa at Mansfield Perk promises and delivers on Anne’s secret wish through a Groundhog Day-type replay of Anne and Frederick’s meeting there. Point of view is limited third person through Anne’s eyes, making her the only developed character. (B)

 

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“Mischief and Mistletoe” is Melissa Buell’s contemporary adaptation of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey published in the 2014 short story anthology, HOLIDAYS WITH JANE: CHRISTMAS CHEER. It includes allusions to Mansfield Park (the coffee shop Mansfield Perk apparently opened a franchise in Santa Barbara, California) and to Cate Morland’s fashion customers as other Austen characters (including Dr. Anne Elliot from Becton’s “The Work of an Instant.”) The anthology is available in e-book format.

Catherine Morland is eighteen years old, a preacher’s kid, home-schooled, poor, and utterly naive. She is a gifted tailor and fashion designer. Her family friends the Allens, patrons of the Santa Barbara Dickens’ [sic] Christmas Festival, hire her as costume designer for the festival and allow her to stay with them at their luxury condominium. She quickly meets Henry Tilney, a winner of the Allen Scholarship who’s finishing up his M. Divinity and a volunteer in the costume department. She also meets Isabella Thorpe, who plays Fan in the drama, and her brother John Thorpe, who rooms with Cate’s brother James Morland at college. Something nefarious is going on in their involvement with the Morlands.

This is the point at which I give up. I simply do not find characters or situation believable. How likely is it that a teenager who’s never worked with volunteers, who recycles clothing from thrift shops for her fabrics, would be put in total charge of the costume department to design and construct all new costumes for a major festival? Like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, I can sometimes believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast, but I don’t believe this scenario. Cate and James Morland are so socially inexperienced with people who would use them that they should be locked up for their own protection.

“Mischief and Mistletoe” also contains two of my pet peeves. The festival is consistently referred to as the “Dickens’ Christmas Festival.” The proper singular possessive form is “Dickens’s.” Cate winds up stranded at a thrift shop when she can’t call for the car because she left her cell phone at the Allens’ (plural possessive ending in ‘s) condo.

No grade for either “Mischief and Mistletoe” or for HOLIDAYS FOR JANE: CHRISTMAS CHEER because neither finished.

 

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“A Sleigh Ride for Two” is one of Rosa Fairbanks’s short stories in her Christmas anthology ONCE UPON A DECEMBER: HOLIDAY TALES OF PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, published in e-book format in 2015.

It’s Christmastime in London following Charles Bingley’s abrupt departure from Netherfield. He has just purchased Lethenbrook Bridge, an estate some thirty miles from Pemberley, and he is determined to return to Netherfield for Christmas, despite opposition from his sisters and his friend Fitzwilliam Darcy. Bingey plans to stay there until he wins to wife Jane Bennet. He’s taken with the idea of proposing to Jane on a sleigh ride. Much to his own surprise, Darcy finds himself also buying a sleigh and accompanying Bingley; he reasons that he and Elizabeth Bennet will thus be acceptable chaperones who can give Bingley and Jane privacy to order their lives. Just maybe, Darcy can also change Elizabeth’s opinion of him.

Much of Darcy’s proposal at Hunsford and of the subsequent letter explaining his actions are taken verbatim from the original. However, Fairbanks’s Elizabeth does not change her attitudes toward Daarcy over time. She goes from fury at his evaluation of her family and his treatment of Jane and Wickham to recognition of Darcy’s worth to acceptance of his proposal instantly. This speed undermines her firmness of character. Otherwise, a comfortable read with no surprises. (B)

 

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“Fitzy the Snowman” is the third short story in Rosa Fairbanks’s anthology ONCE UPON A DECEMBER: HOLIDAY TALES OF PRIDE AND PREJUDICE published in 2015.

The Gardiner and their children are to extend their Christmas stay at Longbourn until after Twelfth Night and the marriage of Jane Bennet to Charles Bingley, During their visit a snow gives Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet the chance to shed their misconceptions of each other as they play with the young Gardiners. Fitzy the Snowman is much more appealing to Elizabeth than is Mr. Darcy.

The story is very brief. It’s distinctive because it’s narrated by eight-year-old Kathleen Gardiner who faithfully reports interaction between Darcy and Elizabeth without understanding what she’s seeing.

Two anachronisms bother me. One is the reference to “Frosty the Snowman,” which was written in 1950 by Walter Rollins and Steve Nelson and recorded by Gene Autry. The second is Elizabeth’s comparing Darcy to his marble portrait in the gallery at Pemberley. Not only has she not visited Pemberley to know about the bust, in the original she sees a painted portrait. Elizabeth sees the bust in the 2005 film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.

Pleasant, comfortable story. (B)

 

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Susannah Stacey published GOODBYE, NANNY GRAY in 1987. It is the first in her series featuring Detective Superintendent Robert Bone, set in Saxhurst near Tunbridge Wells.

Phoebe Gray had been last seen on Monday evening, according to neighbors and her niece Carey Sidgwick, but Tuesday morning, she is missing from her cottage. Two young teenagers discover her body in the Manor Woods, owned by rock star Ken Cryer. Nanny Gray had recently inherited £200,000 from Sir Gareth Herne, recently dead from a heroin overdose after liquidating all his non-entailed assets. His young brother Valentine gets Herne Hall, but everything else went to Nanny Gray, who in turn wills it to her niece Carey. But the wound on Nanny’s head does not match where she reportedly fell. Sir Valentine is furious at her, Carey is eager to buy a nursing home with her sudden inheritance, and Nanny had been on bad terms with Ted Larkin, a neighbor with a record for GBH. She also knows a secret involving the last of her nursing charges, Mrs. Khalifa Abdurrahman, who gives her expensive gifts. But who wanted her dead, and why was her body moved?

I like the characters in GOODBYE, NANNY GRAY. There is enough personal detail about Robert Bone to lend verisimilitude--he is a widower whose wife and unborn son were killed in a car accident in which teenage daughter Charlotte was seriously injured. She is still struggling with speech therapy following damage to the speech centers of her brain and with physical therapy on her legs. He is an involved, loving father. Bone has a good working relationship with Inspector Steve Locker, and he is careful to credit his team for their successes. Other characters are also individual.

Stacey has a talent for creating word pictures that put the reader on the scene, including her opening: “Somewhere in the forest a bird was making a noise like a watch being wound up. The pierrot stopped for a moment and listened, then bent again to what lay at its feet. Bodies are heavier when there is no life in them and it was not easy work. The leave under foot rustled like animals moving, and there were roots and pieces of fallen branch that got in the way. The light of the moon, obscured from time to time behind quick-moving clouds, shone on the white satin coat and the black pom-poms with a soft radiance wasted on its observers. A fox on te way back to its den stared at the scene without asking any more sense of it than it had to; the scent was human and the whole business best avoided. To the pierrot...what was perceived was the unfamiliar: wet leaves, autumnal decay of all kinds, and rot disturbed. At last a good place was reached, far enough away from tracks that dissected the forest, and the burden was deposited, to add its own smell in time.” (7)

The plot in GOODBYE, NANNY GRAY is well-handled with a realistic selection of potential suspects and motives, appropriately foreshadowed. It’s an excellent beginning to the series. (A-)

 

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UNDONE BUSINESS is Rosa Fairbank’s novella variant on Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. It was published in e-book format in 2015.

UNDONE BUSINESS is almost a trilogy. The first half consists of a minimally changed account of the courtship of Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. The only major change is that Elizabeth refuses to read Darcy’s morning-after letter, so he tells her about Jane and about Wickham. By the time she changes her mind later in the same day, Darcy has departed Rosings. When he learns that Elizabeth is visiting the Gardiners in London, he calls on her, and they are soon engaged, then married. Required levels of angst, no serious opposition.

The second segment of UNDONE BUSINESS begins abruptly and focuses on Jane Bennet, depressed over Charles Bingley’s failure to return to Netherfield. Immediately following Darcy’s confession to his interference, Bingley must travel to the Indies on business; he leaves without contacting Jane. Bingley is reported seriously injured in a storm and the ship attacked by American vessels, so no communication leads his family to presume him dead. Jane grieves but has two later suitors: Isaiah Burton, the man who’d written a sonnet to her when she was fifteen years old, and Darcy’s cousin James Fitzwilliam, Viscount Arlington, eldest son of the Earl of Matlock. This portion focuses on Jane’s sense of uncertainty about her ever marrying and her choice between between the two men.

The final story line involves Charles Bingley, who did not die, but instead became involved in the anti-slavery movement after observing conditions in Jamaica. It summarizes his life until 1838 when slavery was abolished in the British Empire.

****POSSIBLE SPOILERS****

I would prefer that Fairbanks had divided UNDONE BUSINESS into the novella for the Darcy-Bennet courtship and two novels to deal with the latter two story lines. Both offer interesting premises for development. I do have trouble with the presumption of Bingley’s death. He tells Jane, whom he encounters accidentally in Jamaica where she’s traveling with her husband, that he had written weekly for the entire period he’d been away from England. Admittedly the War of 1812 on the seas might have prevented delivery of some of those letters, but for two years? American privateers were good, but the Royal Navy worked on a convoy system with merchant ships, so regular communications were never completely cut off. I also find it hard to believe that Darcy, fond as he was of his best friend Bingley, did not move heaven and earth to find out what had happened to him.

The ending is too drawn out, with Fairbanks covering the marriages of almost every character mentioned in Pride and Prejudice and in UNDONE BUSINESS. Bingley’s involvement in the anti-slavery movement is superfluous to the main story lines and too detailed to be included as part of an epilogue. More is not always better. Sometimes it is too much. (C)

 

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BLOOD SWEEP is the twentieth book in the Posadas County mystery series by Steven F. Havill. It was published in 2015 in e-book and print editions. Its active protagonists are Sheriff Robert Torrez and Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman, with their mentor Bill Gastner in the background to support them with his knowledge of Posadas County, New Mexico.

Someone shoots at Torrez as he hunts antelope on the property where Miles Waddell is developing NightZone, a multi-million dollar astronomy and nature complex. The shooter explodes the scope of Torrez’s hunting rifle rather than his skull. Estelle discovers Bill Gastner on the floor in his garage where he fell some eighteen hours before and shattered his hip; she helps organize the medical care for Gastner, her non-biological father and godfather to her sons Francisco and Carlos. In addition, she’s alarmed to learn that piano prodigy Francisco is in dangerous Mazatlan to play fund-raising concerts for the conservatory there. Someone purporting to be Colonel Tomas Naranjo of the Federales has called her adoptive mother Teresa Reyes to send $8000 to Mazatlan to bail Francisco out of jail. One of the deputies discovers the body of Miguel Querada, dead from a gunshot wound in his jeep along with the rifle that fired the shot at Torrez. Quesada had visited the NightZone construction site in company with Dominic Olveda, a representative of Development International in Tucson come to negotiate with Waddell and Posadas County authorities for peripheral development projects involving NightZone. Then Estelle receives a call from Benedicte Mazon, who claims to be her uncle (of whom she has never heard) to reassure her that Francisco is perfectly safe despite the murders of two criminals in an alley close to the concert venue. The murder rate rises swiftly when Mazon arrives in Posadas. What is going on, and does it involve NightZone?

The plot of BLOOD SWEEP follows a standard Havill formula: a series of apparently unrelated incidents or crimes that, when investigated, lead to unsuspected ramifications. The story comes to a realistic ending but leaves the distinct impression that NightZone may generate further problems for Posadas County. Havill plays fair with revealing information as Torrez, Naranjo, and Estelle receive it.

Havill is skilled at details of setting that place readers in the scene. “Certainly much of the modern economy had passed the village by. Regal was the sort of place destined never to know the bright lights of a Dollar store, or an all-night pharmacy--or any pharmacy at all, for that matter. The village was not gridded and surveyed and street-lit. The very darkness of the village worked in Mazon’s favor, as did the hodge-podge layout of the community. The fifteen houses had been built as each owner saw fit with lot lines sometimes marked by rustic fences, sometimes not. Outbuildings in various states of repair were scattered through the village as if a giant hand had swept overhead, sifting them down. Once over the pass and the smooth macadam of State 56, visitors found every lane in the village hard-packed dirt with occasional soft sand pockets or deep ruts in the caliche. In spots, the narrow lanes wound within a foot or so of a front porch or juniper fence behind which elderly mules dozed.” (239)

For a series to continue strong, the author must keep the continuing characters true to themselves as well as fresh; in a small community such as the Posadas County Sheriff’s Department, it is essential that their relationships be believable. Havill excels at this. Torrez is so close-mouthed that any glimpse of his personality is refreshing. “Torrez took a deep breath. He liked the State Police lieutenant most of the time, although the sheriff was acutely aware that he himself lacked the glad-handing skills Adams so effortlessly employed. He had no trouble embracing the ‘need to know’ rule. He knew others found him beyond taciturn, beyond tight-lipped. That, Sheriff Torrez had told his wife, ...was their problem, not his.” (160) BLOOD SWEEP offers information on Estelle’s adoption by Teresa Reyes so many years before. Her uncle Benedicte Mazon is satisfyingly complex with multiple motives for his actions.

The verisimilitude of Posadas County and its denizens makes BLOOD SWEEP an excellent continuation of this highly recommended series. (A)

 

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FREDERICK WENTWORTH, CAPTAIN: Book 2: FOR YOU ALONE is the second volume in a continuation of the Jane Austen novel Persuasion. It was published in e-book format in 2008. It resumes the story of Captain Frederick Wentworth of the Royal Navy and Anne Elliot, whose betrothal in 1806 had been broken by his lack of fortune and connections and her reliance on the advice of her godmother Lady Russell. His attentions to the injured Louisa Musgrove have led both families to believe Wentworth courting Louisa; he realizes that, should she press the matter, he is duty-bound to marry her, just at the time he realizes that he is still in love with Anne Elliot.

The main change in FOR YOU ALONE from the original is in the change in point of view, showing almost all the story through Wentworth. Kaye shows him greatly ambivalent about his feelings for Anne, even after he learns of the engagement between Lieutenant James Benwick and Louisa and determines to win back Anne, and about her feelings for himself. He is not very perceptive about women, not recognizing her open approaches to him in the presence of family and Bath society at large at the Molland tea shop and at the concert are clear indications of her feelings and her unconcern about who knows it. Character development and sense of place are better handled than in most Austen variants.

***POSSIBLE SPOILERS***

Kaye adds interesting back stories to FOR YOU ALONE. The older Wentworth brother Edward had run away to sea at sixteen after a massive beating from their abusive father, had deserted ship in Barbados and become an accountant involved in the slave trade; he returned to England only when heir mother died leaving him responsible for much younger siblings Sophia and Frederick. Kaye implies that his becoming a clergyman resulted from his exposure to slavery. Lady Russell tells Wentworth details of the marriage of Sir Walter Elliot and his wife Anne that help explain her opposition to his marriage to Anne in 1806; her story hints that her own marriage made her uneasy about what exotic sexual habits Wentworth might have picked up and expect of Anne. Kaye reveals William Walter Elliot to be even more despicable than the original. These, while explaining character, make the story drag on much too long (though it is gratifying to see Wentworth, with perfect manners and appropriate outward respect, put Sir Walter straight about his intention to marry Anne).

My major problem with FOR YOU ALONE involves the Navy recall of Wentworth to active duty in ten days. (In the original novel, he has sold out his commission and is no longer a member of the Royal Navy.) He and Anne will not have time to be married as planned. She insists on an immediate elopement to Gretna Green. Kaye puts this in the falling action, long past the turning point of the story. If it is to be part of the Kaye alternative to Persuasion, it deserves fuller treatment in a novel or novella of its own; if not, it should be omitted since, as it stands, it turns the conclusion into anticlimax. (B)

 

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THE QUEEN OF SCOTS MYSTERY is the sixth book in the Pitkirtly mystery series written by Cecilia Peartree. It was published in e-book and print editions in 2013. The protagonists are Christopher Wilson, director of the Pitkirtly Cultural Centre, and Amaryllis Peebles, semiretired spy and full-time snoop.

When Neil Macrae, owner of the only pub in Pitkirtly The Queen of Scots, finds Liam Johnstone dead of asphyxiation from carbon dioxide poisoning in the cellar, his death must be investigated though it appears to be accidental. The pub is closed indefinitely until the case is resolved. But when did Liam enter the cellar, and what prevented his leaving it? Local Detective Inspector Charlie Smith has been suspended in a dispute with his superiors over proper accommodation of a dog being held as evidence, so Inspector Armstrong comes in from Rosyth as lead investigator. Amanda is supposedly on holiday in Monte Carlo, while Christopher and their friends mess about on the outskirts of the case, curious, willing to gossip, and anxious for Neil to reopen the Queen of Scots. Relationships are complex, with spouses, ex-spouses, lovers, and would-be lovers. Someone prowling around the pub attacks Jock McLean, putting him in hospital. The computer and some of the accounts have disappeared when Neil puts the pub up for sale. Then Neil is lured to the train yards where he is attacked. What is going on?

The plot in THE QUEEN OF SCOTS MYSTERY meanders and never quite seems focused, but Peartree does a skillful job of hiding the villain in a mass of red herrings. The identity and motive of the killer come as a surprise despite some foreshadowing. Humor that enlivens earlier books in the series is largely absent. Sense of place is adequate but not special.

I am most disappointed in the lack of character development. For a long-running series to remain fresh, the protagonists must be dynamic and/or reveal incidents from their back stories that illuminate their personalities. Christopher Wilson is the same bumbling Everyman; he seems to have learned little, definitely follower to Amanda as leader. Peartree presents Amanda almost as a force of nature rather than a person, her main human quality rampant curiosity. She is the active factor in the investigation. Frequent point of view shifts offer only minimal insight into character. The continuing secondary characters are static.

THE QUEEN OF SCOTS MYSTERY is average at best, not up to the standard of the earlier books in the series. (C)

 

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“Mr. Collins’s Last Supper” is a short story published in 2011 by Shannon Winslow. It was free or inexpensive in Kindle edition.

****SPOILERS****

William Bartholomew Collins has had undeserved good fortune: heir to Longbourn, protege of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, the living at Hunsford, a dutiful and judicious wife in Charlotte Lucas Collins. Charlotte manages both him and his home efficiently, so she is much irritated when Lady Catherine sends a leg of mutton to the parsonage with instructions to prepare it that very day. . Collins has lamented to her about the bare parsonage pantry and hinted about Mrs. Collins’s partiality for mutton. He is too proud of his stratagem to hear Charlotte’s anger at his insult to her housekeeping. Mr. Collins’s greed for the mutton and his hurry in consuming it lead to his choking to death on a bite. His faults are soon forgotten and his funeral magnificent with a eulogy by the bishop based on Collins’s final sermon, cribbed from Fordyce.

The object of this story seems to be the extended irony of the eulogy, which diametrically opposes the reality of Mr. Collins’s personality and behavior. His choking to death on the mutton, as he gobbles it to speed on his way to an appointment with Lady Catherine, is satisfyingly appropriate. (B)

 

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MURDER IN THE WOODS is the eighth book in the Inspector Skelgill series written by Bruce Beckham. It was published in 2017.

Inspector Daniel Skelgill is the officer in charge of the investigation when Morse, the Lakeland terrier belonging to June Collins, uncovers the skull of a woman buried in the Keswick Council Nature Reserve on Harterhow. She had been interred some six to nine months and, apart from expensive dental work on her front teeth and four distinctive rings on her fingers, left with no other means of identification. Progress is slow, but several strange characters live in the vicinity of the grave: Marvin Morgan, introduced as a voyeur and collector from the beginning; Archibald Coot, former Liverpool Council Marketing Department, retired to the area where he is secretary of the Friends of Harterhow Hill; his housemate Lester Fox, formerly of the Liverpool Council Finance Office, now president of the Friends of Harterhow HIll; June Collins herself, who makes a dead set at Skelgill, with her missing partner Spencer Fazakerley, gone for four years. What happened to him? Who is the woman victim, and why was she not reported missing? What is going on with the Friends?

The plot is foreshadowed adequately, enough so that an experienced reader may discover the killer before Skelgill and his colleagues, but it moves at a glacial pace. Despite the police procedural format, what Skelgill discovers is not revealed until the tell-all in the conclusion. Secondary story lines include DS Leyton whose wife has medical problems and DS Emma Jones and Skelgill in an implied intimate relationship. Shifts in viewpoints add little to character development. The enmity between Skelgill and Detective Inspector Alec Smart worsens without contributing to the plot. Sense of place is well above average.

MURDER IN THE WOODS, however, may be my last book in this series, since the last few have moved dramatically in directions I do not appreciate. There have been no positive developments to the three main characters. Indeed, Skelgill is more than ever a lone wolf, not sharing his thought processes or conclusions, relying on his intuition while his subordinates collect the hard evidence. Most of the breakthroughs come from Jones and her ability to assimilate data.

Changes in the Beckham writing style bother me most. Use of present tense verbs, while possibly meant to convey immediacy, is obtrusive. Word choice is sometimes questionable: orientate, a woman’s pants suit made out of crinoline, a land snail described as having tentacles. Most of all, Beckham has gone to an intrusive, unreliable narrator for the stories. “Is it by wishful thinking...that he returns to Harterhow? Are as-yet-unturned stones a figment of his imagination? Should he not simply accept that there was a logical pathway that ran through this case--as DS Jones sensibly did?” Beckham seldom says explicitly what Skelgill observes or thinks, using u“seems to think,” “perhaps believes,” and other such qualifiers. I do not like unreliable narration.

MURDER IN THE WOODS is a disappointment. (D)

 

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MR. KNIGHTLEY’S SECRET is a novella by W. E. Dashwood that retells the story from Emma by Jane Austen. It was published in 2016.

The only significant change in MR. KNIGHTLEY’S SECRET from the original is opening the point of view from limited third person through Emma to include the viewpoints of George Knightley, Miss Bates, Isabella Woodhouse Knightley, John Knightley, and Jane Fairfax. The Robert Martin-Harriet Smith romance is alluded to but plays no role in the story; Reverend Elton is already married, so his mistaken courtship of Emma is not a factor.

Characters are consistent with the Austen originals, though Emma and Frank Churchill both seem more immature. Using Jane Fairfax’s point of view reveals her secret relationship with Frank Churchill, which removes what little suspense exists in his attentions to Emma.

MR. KNIGHTLEY’S SECRET is pleasant enough but, instead of reading it, I recommend re-reading the original Emma. (C)

 

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THE CASE OF THE SCREAMING BEAUTY is the novella prequel to the mystery series by Alison Golden. It features Detective Inspector David Graham, his first case on active duty following the traffic-accident death of his young daughter Katie and the breakdown of his marriage some five months before. It was published in e-book format n 2016.

Amelia and Cliff Swansbourne are current owners of the exclusive bed and breakfast inn The Lavender. Busily engaged in the lavish gardens on Sunday morning, Amelia hears a distinct scream from the room occupied by Norah Travis, a beautiful blonde guest in her mid-twenties; Norah, however, denies hearing the scream or making it. On Monday morning, housekeeper Doris Tisbury discovers Norah’s body in her bathroom. She had been killed some twelve hours before by a blow to the head from a golf club, a driver. The only other guest Tim Lloyd, an investigative reporter, acts suspiciously, lies to the police about his relationship with Norah, and plants suspicion on her ex-husband, minor criminal Jimmy Travis. Travis has an alibi, as does everyone else known to have reason to want Norah dead; no physical evidence points to a suspect. So who did kill her, and why?

As a prequel to the series, which I have not read, THE CASE OF THE SCREAMING offers an intriguing glimpse of Detective Inspector Daviid Graham, his methods, his personality, and his emotional baggage. He has enough idiosyncrasies to be believable. Though not friends, he and Sergeant iHarris have a solid professional relationship based on mutual respect. I regret that this duo will split when Graham receives his requested transfer to Jersey. Sense of place is good.

The plot is simple enough that an experienced reader will probably discern the killer before the final clue turns up. Golden foreshadows through character rather than forensics, though having a fifteen-year-old work experience student shadowing the county pathologist recognize the final bit of needed evidence is neat.

THE CASE OF THE SCREAMING BEAUTY convinces me to give the series a try. (B)

 

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ELIZABETH BENNET’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE is another in the series of vagaries on Pride and Prejudice written by Regina Jeffers. It was published in e-book format in 2015.

After his disastrous proposal to Elizabeth Bennet at Hunsford, Fitzwilliam Darcy write her two letters--one the history of the Darcy family relationship with George Wickham, the other a passionate outpouring of his love for Elizabeth. By mistake, he gives the second letter to Elizabeth before he leaves Rosings. Elizabeth is surprised and shocked, but the letter makes her realize that she cares deeply for Darcy. Maria Lucas finds the letter, reads it, and tells the Collinses of its contents, which compromise Elizabeth irretrievably unless she and Darcy marry immediately. Darcy prefers that she marry him for love, but he resolves to win her heart after their marriage. The day before their wedding, Darcy, delayed in London on business, is set upon by criminals who mistake him for George Wickham, beat him, and leave him to die, tied up in woods somewhere outside the city. Unaware of this on their wedding day, Elizabeth waits for two hours at the church, but Darcy never arrives. She, convinced this is revenge for her devastating refusal of his original proposal, determines to have at least one adventure before settling down to be old-maid aunt to her sisters’ children. She plans on Brighton, but unforeseen events send her to Portsmouth; en route she meets Captain Frederick Wentworth of the Royal Navy, who introduces her to Captain and Mrs. Harville and Commander Benwick (all from Persuasion). Meantime Darcy, still intent on marrying Elizabeth and on discovering why Wickham deserved to be beaten, searches for her as he tries to reassure her family of his honorable intentions. Much angst ensues before all the couples are safely united.

Characters from Pride and Prejudice are all reasonably faithful to the originals, though much of Darcy and Elizabeth’s angst and doubt of the other’s feelings could have been avoided by a frank conversation. Charles Bingley is more attractive for choosing to trust his own observation of Jane Bennet’s feelings rather than Darcy’s assurances of her indifference. Captain Wentworth says explicitly in Persuasion that he’s never cared for any woman except Anne Elliot, but he is so taken with Elizabeth under her alias as the widow Mrs. Bryland, that he is jealous of Darcy and makes her an offer.

Problems in editing include homophones (shear/sheer, breech/breach), misuse of names (Mrs. Harville as Mrs. Gardiner, Mr. Sloane as Grange), and reference to Colonel Fitzwilliam serving on the Peninsular (a reference to the Peninsular War against Napoleon, fought on the Iberian Peninsula). Jeffers slips into unreliable narrator occasionally. Darcy, beaten and left for dead with cracked if not broken ribs and head injuries, in the woods for three days without food or water before he’s found, is gallivanting about England four days later with no significant mention of his injuries.

Jeffers continues the pairings-up beyond Darcy and Elizabeth to Jane and Bingley, to Mary Bennet and Mr. Sloane, to Lydia Bennet and Captain Owen Vaughan, to Wickham and Penelope Sloane. Too much already, even if the latter two marriages reflect Regency methods to salvage a compromised woman’s ruined reputation. They weaken the force of the main story line.

Still, ELIZABETH BENNET’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE is an original variant with good characterization. (A-)

 

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THE MAESTRO WORE MOHAIR is one of the Liturgical Mystery series written by Mark Schweizer. It was published in e-book and print formats in 2015. Its protagonist is first-person narrator Hayden Konig, Chief of Police of St. Germaine, North Carolina, and Director of Music (organist/choir director) at St. Barnabas’s Episcopal Church. He fancies himself a worthy successor of Raymond Chandler, whose typewriter he uses to produce noir stories. The current story is included, this one even more outrageous than usual.

It is hard to summarize the plot of THE MAESTRO WORE MOHAIR without doing spoilers. Too much is going on. St. Barnabas is again experiencing an interim rector as the Worship Committee seeks to fill the permanent position. Kimberly Walnut, with her new doctorate and a publishing contract for her dissertation Fifty Nifty Thrifty Ministries for Growing Your Congregation, establishes a new Cuddling Ministry called Sarah’s Snuggery, to serve those in need of human physical contact. Helen Pigeon is incensed because dogs harass the angora-producing Tennessee Fainting goats that she expects to make her fortune when she sells breeding stock. Three fervent Pentecostals invade a neighboring yard to dig out four-leaf clovers, spread by Satan to promote superstition. A PTSD ex-Navy SEAL breaks up an armed standoff between them and Dr. Walnut at Sunday service. Thomas Walmsley, interim rector known to go commando under his cassock, has a close encounter with a beaver trap. Meg Konig is pregnant. Oh, yes--teenagers find the skeleton of a woman buried some thirty years in the woods of the former Camp Possumtickle, now being redeveloped as a Renaissance Fair theme park. So amidst the day-to-day activities in St. Germaine, Hayden and his officers Nancy Parsky and Dave Vance have a murder to solve.

Humor is always a strong element in the Liturgical mysteries, each book containing at least one scene that is itself worth the price of the book. THE MAESTRO WORE MOHAIR has three. Konig has a self-deprecating sense of humor that is appealing: “Money could buy typewriters, but not talent--that was Meg’s assertion as she read the stories I continued to produce on the old machine and pass out to the choir for their amusement or, as she put it, their amazement. I had quite a pile of them now, some better than others, but all, in my opinion, reeking of genius. Yes, that was the word Meg used as well.”

I consider myself whimsy-impaired, but I enjoy Schweitzer. I find it easy to suspend my disbelief and appreciate the antics of the citizens of St. Germaine. My only complaint is that Schweitzer includes too many of them that are at best tangential to the murder storyline. (A-)

 

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DESPERATE HEARTS is a variant on Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, written by Anna Kate Suton and published in e-book format in 2016. It uses an original premise that makes it impossible to do a comprehensive summary without spoiling the plot. Suffice it to say there are deep secrets in the Bennet family’s past.

Charles Bingley at Netherfield seeks and obtains permission to court Jane Bennet; his guest Fitzwilliam Darcy has permission from Elizabeth Bennet to ask for her and her father’s consent. All are happy, except for Caroline Bingley, who still plans to marry Darcy herself. She departs for a visit to school friend Deidre Hetherington in Surrey, where she concocts a plan with Lady Catherine de Bourgh to end forever Darcy’s commitment to Elizabeth. In London with Darcy, Colonel Fitzwilliam gossips to him about the goings-on across the Square from Darcy House at the home of the Italian ambassador; it is occupied by a translator for the Embassy and his current mistress. When Darcy sees Gino Moretti and the woman, he is astonished to recognize her as Elizabeth Bennet. What on earth is going on?

In many ways, DESPERATE HEARTS is satisfying. Suton is faithful to the original characters, though Darcy’s rapid descent into depression and drink makes him weaker than in Austen. Colonel Fitzwilliam is resolute on uncovering what is going on. Bingley and Anne de Bourgh grow spines and deal appropriately with their relatives. Karma catching up with Caroline and Lady Catherine is gratifying. Much of the action comes through the eyes of Colonel Fitzwilliam and Caroline, making them the best developed of the characters.

DESPERATE HEARTS does have some problems, however. These include frequent shifts between characters and locations that make the flow of the story choppy. Another is the inclusion of several full letters, necessary for exposition but conveying little about the characters writing them. Suton refers to the new Knickerbocker book about the history of New York (Washington Irving, 1809), making the date during which the story occurs unclear. Suton also includes anachronisms. She refers to police being sent to Netherfield, when the British police force was not instituted until the first tenure (1822-7) of Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel. She has Colonel Fitzwilliam use Sherlock Holmes‘s words about eliminating the impossible to leave the truth, no matter how improbable it may seem. She refers to preparing a cuppa, when that term for a cup of tea or of coffee was not introduced until the 1920s. Most of all, I question the psychological validity of Elizabeth Bennet’s reaction to the revelation of Bennet family secret, but I refrain from a spoiler.

I do recommend DESPERATE HEARTS as one of the most intriguing variants to date of Pride and Prejudice. (B+)

 

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POISONED PALETTE is the sixth book in the Fitzjohn mysteries series by Jill Paterson. It was published in e-book and print formats in 2017 and features Detective Chief Inspector Alistair Fitzjohn of the Day Street Station in Sydney, Australia, and his ginger assistant, Detective Sergeant Melvin Betts.

Fitzjohn and Betts have just concluded a joint investigation with the Blue Mountains Local Area Command out of Springwood Police Station when internationally famous landscape artist Florence Fontaine dies in suspicious circumstances following the successful auction of major works. She is determined to raise funds for an annex to her home Lyrebird Lodge in Leura to be a gallery for struggling artists and an instructional center. Local cafe owner Adrian Farrell, however, pesters her to sell him the estate; he has plans to build a convention center, and her property is central to his scheme. Jack Green is obsessed with Florence, who enjoys his attention, while Audrey Green confronts her more than once about encouraging him. Her estranged stepsister Carolyn Winter arrives unexpectedly, demanding a share in the business to preserve some secret that would ruin Florence’s reputation. Patrick Fontaine, Florence’s sole heir and executor of her will, is nearly bankrupt and lies to the police. The autopsy shows Florence died of cyanide poisoning, so Chief Superintendent Sidney Blake requests Fitzjohn be seconded to his understaffed station to investigate the murder; Chief Superintendent Grieg of Day Steet Station uses this request to transfer Fitzjohn to Blue Mountains permanently without prior notice or consultation. As Fitzjohn and Betts investigate, they find that Florence’s poisoned champagne had been intended for her new business manager Claire Reynolds, who has nightmares about a man dying in a fire. Aiden Farrell threatens Claire unless she persuades Florence to sell him Lyrebird Lodge. She is bitterly resented by his daughter Lucy Farrell who expected to become business manager for Florence. New assistant at the shop and gallery Laura Evans is standoffish with Claire. Hanging about in Leura is mysterious American Matthew Avery, asking questions about Florence’s death and sticking close to Claire. Who is the intended victim, and what is the motive?

Plot is police procedural format with appropriate foreshadowing and an interesting layering of crimes and motives. Fitzjohn resolves the secondary storyline of his transfer without having to leave Sydney, the cottage and garden deigned by his now deceased wife Edith, or their beloved prize orchids. His feeling for his home, his devotion to University-student niece Sophie, and his mentoring relationship with Betts--all make Fitzjohn an appealing protagonist. Sense of place is good. Editing for correct use of apostrophes in plurals and possessives is needed. (A-)

 

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THE DARCYS OF DERBYSHIRE is a novella variant of Pride and Prejudice written by Abigail Reynolds and published in e-book format in 2013. It is based on the scene from the 2005 film adaptation in which the Gardiners picnic and Elizabeth Bennet climbs the high tor on their travels in Derbyshire before they visit Pemberley.

****SPOILERS****

Forbidden to climb the tor alone. despite her love of high places and the magnificent view it would command, Elizabeth is surprised to discover the lone gentleman on the crag is Fitzwilliam Darcy. The Black Rocks had been beloved of his parents, and he comes there annually to show his respects. Gracious to the Gardiners and attentive to Elizabeth, he offers to escort her to the summit. As they climb and then survey the scene, Darcy reveals to Elizabeth the story of his parents’ courtship in 1781. Despite a brief misunderstanding heightened by their physical closeness and emotional intimacy, Darcy and Elizabeth declare themselves.

Characters are faithful to the originals. I like that Elizabeth takes the lead in clearing up Darcy’s mistaken notion of her being repulsed by his kiss. The courtship story is charming and explains part of the Lady Catherine de Bourgh back story.

THE DARCYS OF DERBYSHIRE is a warm, comfortable read. (B+)