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Readingomnivore Reviews

With this review I officially kick off my 2016 Christmas reading program. Through New Year's Eve, I will read stories and books involving Christmas themes or with holiday settings.

Andrea Frazer’s “The Best Christmas Ever” is a brief short story, one Christmas Eve in the hard life of Taff, an elderly arthritic homeless man. It was published in 2012 in e-book format. The action consists of Taff’s memories including those of happiness and joy of Christmas in the orphanage during the best years of his life, and his experiencing a wonderful Christmas Eve. He is well-fed, he receives many donations, and, best of all, he does not crave or use alcohol. He hears a live Salvation Army outdoor concert, goes to Midnight Mass, and revisits the orphanage, now abandoned and scheduled or demolition, to experience again the Christmas of his childhood. The conclusion is not really a surprise.

Touching, an appropriate reminder of how much Christmas can mean. (A)
 
Published in 2016, Mary Hiker’s short story “Christmas Party” begins with preparations for a Search and Rescue Team’s Christmas party for themselves and their dogs, involves a woman’s being shot by Santa Claus, develops into a major drug bust, and concludes with the team and their dogs partying with the residents of the Happy Bear Creek Nursing Home.

Complaints are that many of the characters are first names only, with minimal development. Setting other than Christmas season is not specified. But “Christmas Party” is a quick fun read, enlivened by the presence of the dogs. (B)
 
ELIZABETH AND MR. DARCY’S FIRST CHRISTMAS is a novella by W. E. Dashwood, set a month after the marriage of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy. It is a variant on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. The story was published in 2016 as a free or inexpensive e-book.

The Darcys plan to entertain their combined families at Pemberley during Christmas week. Both expect the visitors to be less than congenial, but Elizabeth prefers to have them together to minimize how long she and her husband will be exposed to their unpleasantness. Lady Catherine de Bourgh takes issue with the guest room she’s given; Mrs. Bennet announces the imminent arrival of Lydia and George Wickham, who had NOT been invited for Christmas week; Georgiana has especially asked that Giles Blackmore of Meryton be invited, so Darcy and Elizabeth must guard against Georgiana’s being embarrassed by Wickham’s presence and also evaluate Blackmore as her potential suitor. To add to the confusion and stress, Lady Catherine has a treasured bracelet stolen. Darcy and Elizabeth have one hour to get the bracelet back before she denounces the thieves--she believes the Wickhams--to a magistrate.

****SPOILERS****

Where to start? Changes to the original story include Elizabeth’s inviting Lydia and Wickham for a stay after Christmas, not at the time of the family party, but to visit Pemberley through a ball scheduled in January. Darcy has apparently agreed to this. I simply do not see Darcy ever again allowing Wickham at Pemberley. Nor do I see him offering to pay Wickham’s new debts, no questions asked, for return of the bracelet. In Pride and Prejudice, Lydia and Wickham are located in Newcastle with his Army regiment; in this variant, they are in Brighton, where Wickham has run up debts through bad handling of business investments for his friends. They come to Pemberley to hide from creditors. What happened to the Army career?

At dinner Dashwood seats Lady Catherine at the head of the Darcys’ dinner table, with Elizabeth seated beside Darcy at the foot of the table. To follow precedence, Lady Catherine should be on Darcy’s right, and the highest-ranking male guest at Elizabeth’s right at the head of the table. After dinner, Lady Catherine is served sherry in a snifter, very different from a sherry glass. There’s a great furor over locating cards, with family and guests searching. Would not a servant be dispatched after cards? How likely is it that Pemberley boasts only one deck of playing cards?

The presence of a huge decorated and lighted Christmas tree in the sitting room at Pemberley is anachronistic. In the early nineteenth century, only those with German connections had decorated trees. Christmas trees did not become generally popular until after The Illustrated London News in 1848 published a picture of Victoria and Albert with a family Christmas tree. *

I could go on, but why beat a dead horse? The most enjoyable parts of ELIZABETH AND MR. DARCY’S FIRST CHRISTMAS are the bad behavior and snarky comments, not much in keeping with the spirit of Christmas. (D)

*Maria Grace, JANE AUSTEN’S CHRISTMAS: REGENCY CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS (2014), 33.
 
MENACE AT THE CHRISTMAS MARKET is a novella in Sara Rosett’s Murder on Location cozy mystery series. It was published in e-book format in 2015. Its first person narrator is Kate Sharp, an American working in England as a location scout for a series of television documentaries on Jane Austen.

When Kate goes to the Christmas Market in Upper Benning with her pub-owning friend Louise Clement, she’s looking for a special Christmas gift for her boy friend Alex Norcutt and looking forward to meeting Jane Austen fan fiction writer Harriet Hayden. Louise knows Hayden through Page Turners, the local book club where Harriet spoke the night before leaving for a short stay on Gran Canaria, the largest of the Canary Islands. Harriet’s friend Gina Brill became worried when she didn’t return as planned, but the police refuse to take her concern seriously. They say Harriet simply extended her holiday. Harriet loves the Christmas Market, and she would not miss it. Except she does. When Gina is poisoned at the Christmas Market, Kate and Louise conclude there must be something going on. Did Harriet ever leave England?

MENACE AT THE CHRISTMAS MARKET is standard cozy fare. Police are thick as planks, first refusing to take Gina seriously, then latchingonto her as chief suspect in Harriet’s disappearance. Their wrong-headedness brings on the amateurs’ investigation to protect their friend. Kate’s boyfriend Alex just happens to be on Gran Canaria spending Christmas with his mother, so he’s able to investigate in situ. There is only one choice for suspect, and the motive is obvious. Characterization is sketchy at best even for Kate. Setting is the strongest element in the story, but there’s a glaring mistake in British versus US English usage. Kate enjoys “crisps” at the pub, specifically saying she’d call them “french fries” in America. “Crisps” are British potato chips, while “chips” are British french fries.

MENACE AT THE CHRISTMAS MARKET is okay but nothing to get excited about. (C)
 
BANKING ON DEATH is the first book in Emma Lathen’s long-running series involving John Putnam Thatcher, Senior Vice-President of the Sloan Guaranty Trust, the third-largest bank in the world, and his various subordinates in the Trust Division. It was published in 1961 but, despite modern emphasis on detection based on computers and forensics, it is not dated.

Several factors are key to my current enjoyment of BANKING ON DEATH. Characterization is all-important. Thatcher is believable, not taking himself too seriously or allowing his exalted position at the Sloan to go to his head. Despite his rampant curiosity, his involvement with various murders over the years always grows out of legitimate Sloan business. He does not grandstand or go lone wolf but uses his personnel to garner information, and he always works in cooperation with the local authorities. Another plus is the authenticity of the people who surround him, individuals with strengths and weaknesses revealed through Lathen’s skilled shifts of focus between characters. She’s good at giving just enough detail from daily life to lend verisimilitude.

I enjoy the wry asides with which Lathen discloses character: “Thatcher was genuinely amused by...the vision ...of every single person with whom his subordinates came into contact lined up in his waiting room. But he was more pleased that Nicolls had not been required to make any hasty promises or harsh refusals. It took, Thatcher had concluded, five to ten years for a trust officer to learn the art of the gentle let-down. The period depended on the individual’s endowment of natural deceit. He himself had been an uncommonly quick learner...” (14)

Plotting is excellent, based on genuine business practices. The Sloan’s young trust officer Ken Nicolls is in process of winding up the Schneider Trust. His only problems are the indecent haste the Schneider family demands for his dispersing the funds and his inability to find Robert Schneider, an heir who disappeared after surviving World he was War II. When Thatcher serendipitously finds Schneider, he’d been murdered two weeks before, on Friday, December 15, leaving an estranged wife and two young sons to inherit his share of the Schneider trust. Thatcher sees it to be the Sloan’s responsibility under the trust to protect the sons’ interest, hence his and his subordinates’ role in uncovering the killer. Details of setting are pivotal to the plot without dominating the action.

I recommend the series and BANKING ON DEATH highly. (A)
 
THE DARCYS’ FIRST CHRISTMAS is a novella written by Maria Grace as a sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It was published in free or inexpensive e-book format in 2016. It is set at Pemberley the Christmas following Elizabeth and Darcy’s wedding in early November 1812.

The Darcys plan a quiet family Christmas with the Gardiners, to be followed by a ball for the Pemberley tenants on December 28. The only ball since the death of Darcy, Senior, had not a success, so it’s important to Elizabeth that this one go well. She works hard with the housekeeper Mrs. Reynolds to plan the ball with Georgiana responsible for directing a separate December picnic for the children, and Elizabeth begins to feel more assured that she can manage the house. Then Lord and Lady Matlock and their son Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam descend on Pemberley on December 6, uninvited, to stay through Christmas and the ball. Well aware of his relatives’ demanding, critical ways and trying to minimize their complaints, Darcy changes Elizabeth’s menus and guest room organization without consulting her, which she takes as proof that he thinks her incapable of properly conducting the household. Can Darcy soothe Elizabeth’s hurt feelings in time for them to have the pleasant Christmas they’d planned?

Several changes make this an enjoyable story. One is that it is a realistic progression of events from the story line of the original. It’s natural that Elizabeth be uncertain and need reassurance about her ability to direct a major country house. Accidents like Elizabeth’s fall do happen and force cancellation of well-made plans. The Bennet family is mentioned but none of them are on-stage during the story except for the Gardiners. Also missing are the de Bourghs.

Characters are the most interesting difference in THE DARCYS’ FIRST CHRISTMAS, notably new introductions Lord and Lady Matlock. Lord Matlock, suffering from gout and an extravagant heir, is deeply in debt, drinks heavily, and spends as much time as possible away from his wife. Lady Matlock is a dominating harridan who makes Lady Catherine look like a sweet little kitty cat. She belittles Elizabeth to her face, tries to usurp planning the ball and running Pemberley, and denounces Darcy publicly for marrying so unsuitbly. It is most satisfying to see her get what’s coming. Contrasting behavior between the Matlocks and the Gardiners clarifies which protagonist has the most offensive relations. Colonel Fitzwilliam, partially disabled after a bad wound in France, suffers from PTSD. Feeling unjustly treated over the Ramsgate debacle, Georgiana behaves like a spoiled modern teenager, manipulating Darcy and taking advantage of Elizabeth’s injury to avoid Lady Matlock and all responsibility.

THE DARCYS’ FIRST CHRISTMAS is one of the best Pride and Prejudice fan fiction sequels to date. (A)
 
Andrea Frazer classifies “Slipping Through the Cracks” as a Christmas ghost story. It was published in 2014 in free or inexpensive e-book format.

Ellie Newell is a 25-year-old single mother of young daughters Angel and Melody. To be able to keep their house, Elle provides room and board in the summer for foreign students and in December and January for an elderly person who needs a warm place to stay. It doesn’t pay much, but so far it’s made the difference. This will be the second year 90-year-old Andrew McKnight Miller has spent with the little family, not apparently very happily because he is unresponsive most of the time; only occasionally he cries and asks about why his children won’t visit him. He mostly sits in a chair and cries, staring at a growing patch of damp staining the wall. His wife and children had been drowned decades before in a holiday boating accident. Ellie decides that she’ll ask the Social for a different client next year. But Christmas Eve night she experiences a dream in which Mr. Miller reunites with his family? Or is it a dream?

“Slipping Through the Cracks” is a neat little short story that ends happily for both Mr. Miller and Ellie, more comforting than scary. (B+)
 
“The Mistletoe Murder” is the title story in P. D. James’s anthology THE MISTLETOE MURDER AND OTHER STORIES, published in e-book format in 2016.

Some fifty years afterward, the unnamed first-person narrator recounts the events of Christmas 1940 when she was an eighteen-year-old recent war widow. With her parents out of England, she accepts the invitation of her maternal grandmother, also unnamed, to Stutleigh Manor for the holiday. She’s expecting her first cousin Paul to be the only other guest, but second cousin Rowland Maybrick is also present, come to appraise a coin collection and arrange for its sale. She instantly dislikes and distrusts Maybrick. After an uneventful Christmas Day, her grandmother retires early, Maybrick withdraws to the library to examine the coins, and the narrator and Paul remain in the sitting room to drink, listen to Wagner played very loud, and play poker. The next morning they find Maybrick dead in the library, his head smashed in. Detective Inspector George Blandy and Chief Constable Sir Rouse Armstrong fail to discover the murder weapon, the motive, or the identity of the killer. But the narrator does. Doesn’t she?

“The Mistletoe Murder” is a play on the traditional country house mystery, one that turns on the mid-twentieth-century English middle class obsession with respectability. James does an outstanding job at using readers’ preconceptions to hide the killer. :devillook Setting the story at Christmas serves the necessary function of assembling the otherwise estranged personae. Characterization is minimal. (B-)
 
AN AFFECTIONATE HEART: A PRIDE AND PREJUDICE WINTER’S TALE is part of Kate Bedlow’s series of novella sequels to the Jane Austen original. It is set in December 1813 as Pemberley prepares for a Bennet family house party over Christmas.

Georgiana Darcy is concerned because she has not moved on with her life following the debacle at Ramsgate with George Wickham. Excepting only Colonel Fitzwilliam, Charles Bingley, and her brother, she considers men rakes, fortune hunters, or both. She’s convinced that she’ll never marry, Then Drake Midwinter arrives as interim curate at All Saints Parish in Lambton. Recently graduated from Oxford and ordained, he’s the nephew of Mr. Clackston, rector of St Mary’s, the Pemberley parish church. Overhearing the kitchen maids describe Mr. Midwinter as a young Apollo and a pleasing speaker, Georgiana goes to services to see for herself. There’s definite chemistry, but he is poor, with no influential connections, and few prospects for a living that would permit him to marry. When his uncle denounces from the pulpit Hannah Brown for loss of virtue, he divides himself from his sister and nephew by forbidding Hannah to attend St Mary’s; Midwinter invites her to attend All Souls. Georgiana, knowing her similar circumstance with Wickham, defends Hannah and sets herself and Elizabeth in opposition to Darcy, who supports Clackston. Parishioners at both churches are divided and contentious over the situation. Can the chaos be calmed before it spoils Christmas? Can Mr. Midwinter’s circumstances change to make him an appropriate suitor for Georgiana?

AN AFFECTIONATE HEART introduces a minimum of new characters, most of them only sketched. Glimpses of the lives of the canonical characters are more interesting. Georgiana bears little resemblance to the Austen original; she’s modern in behavior. The event that changes Georgiana’s beliefs about men would have Austen rotating in her grave. Her insight and maturity come too quickly and too easily to be believable. The basic premise of AN AFFECTIONATE HEART is a good one, but this manuscript needed at least one more thorough revision to build character and develop a sense of immediacy in the action before publication. (C-)
 
“Away From a Manger” is J. J. Salkeld’s Christmas short story prequel to the Natural Detective mystery series featuring Owen Irvine. It was published in free or inexpensive e-book format in 2016.

Owen Irvine is a sixth-former in December 1985 when the carved baby Jesus figure is stolen from the church’s Nativity scene. While attractively carved and painted, it’s of no great monetary value. The vicar Arnold Black, discontent with his poor and unsophisticated parish, sees the theft as symbolic--that Jesus is missing from modern Christmas--or as an outright attack on Christianity itself. Pressure on the police to recover the statuette leads PC Alan Carstairs and DC Ray Dixon to Owen Irvine, one of the local teenagers too young to frequent the pub who hang out in the church’s porch. Owen is still in school but under pressure from his father to commit to life as a farmer; Owen wants to join the police. Challenged. Owen bets his father that he can find the statue before Christmas Eve. If he’s successful, John Irvine will allow him to apply to the police when he passes his A-levels; if not, Owen will leave school after exams to work full-time on the farm. Owen uncovers a most unusual thief.

“Away From a Manger” is an enjoyable little story that is an admirable prequel. It introduces John and Mary Irvine, Owen’s parents who shaped the man he becomes. Dixon and Kathy Stone are both part of his later life. It establishes the setting of the Kentmere Valley and the hardscrabble hill farm where he is inextricably rooted. Most importantly, it shows the boy as father to the man. Young Owen is already enthralled with nature in all its variety, a talented craftsman in wood and a skilled mechanic, quiet but stubborn in his beliefs, empathetic with people, and willing to back his own judgment. Highly recommended. (flat A)
 
MR. DARCY’S PRESENT is Regina Jeffers’s “holiday vagary” novella published in e-book format in 2016. She is one of the better writers of Jane Austen fan fiction based on Pride and Prejudice, and MR. DARCY’S PRESENT is quality in this genre.

Fitzwilliam Darcy still regrets his abrupt, inept proposal of marriage to Elizabeth Bennet at the Netherfield ball. His duty to Pemberley requires that he marry and produce an heir, he needs a wife to nurture Georgiana and present her to Society, but he longs for Elizabeth. While choosing his personal Christmas gifts for family, he purchases a book of poetry and a small ruby pin that would be his gifts to Elizabeth had it been appropriate to gift a young woman with whom he is unconnected. He means to add them to the cache of written but unsent letters to her, a sop to his own feelings. He’s injured in a street accident, his right wrist broken and he unconscious for two days, so his valet writes his gift cards and oversees sending his gifts; Sheffield includes the ones for Elizabeth. A maid accidentally mixes up the gift cards in Georgiana, Anne de Bourgh, Sarah Osborne, and Elizabeth’s gifts, producing a comedy of errors as Darcy scrambles to correct the situation without being challenged by Mrs. Osborne’s betrothed, producing more guilt in Georgiana over Ramsgate, marrying Anne, or compromising Elizabeth.

***POSSIBLE SPOILERS***

Jeffers rings in several interesting changes. Bingley returns to Netherfield without his sisters for Christmas, determined to court Jane Bennet if she will have him. He warns Elizabeth about George Wickham’s wastrel ways while at Cambridge with Darcy and himself; he’s still actively engaged in trade, knows of Mr. Gardiner, and welcomes the prospect of doing business with him. Mr. Gardiner is a major power in London commerce who values Mr. Bennet as a gentleman who accepted the son of a shopkeeper, even one educated at Cambridge, as an equal. He knows the ways of Society and condemns to her face his sister’s laxity in controlling the behavior of her younger daughters. Lady Catherine makes only a token appearance, and it’s satisfying when Darcy tells her off about marrying Anne. Lydia runs away from Longbourn to join Wickham in London, but Jeffers spares her the necessity of marrying Wickham.

Jeffers is faithful to the original characters, offering background on both Elizabeth and Darcy that explains their adult personalities and their reactions to each other. MR. DARCY’S PRESENT is a welcome gift to the readers of Austen fan fiction. (A)
 
A WHITE-KNUCKLE CHRISTMAS is the seventh book in Oliver Tidy’s Romney and Marsh Files. It’s set the last ten days before Christmas, in Dover, Kent, England. It was published in inexpensive or free e-book format in 2016.

Detective Inspector Tom Romney is on leave for a few days doing DIY renovation on his house when he’s called in to cover a case involving two violent deaths. Terrance Daley encountered an armed intruder, struggled with him, and killed him when he fell on his knife; then Daley discovered his wife Lesley dead in her bedroom, stabbed repeatedly. A robbery gone wrong, apparently, but forensic evidence does not back Terrance’s story. When Romney and his team go to pick him up, they find his fifteen-year-old daughter Ellie deeply unconscious from a drug overdose, and Daley dead with slit wrists. The case is quickly closed with Daley pegged as a murderer. The major case in A WHITE-KNUCKLE CHRISTMAS involves five acid attacks on what appear to be random victims, only each one after the attack receives an anonymous letter consisting of only two words cut from newspapers. The fifth victim’s mother provides a connection between the victims--some twenty years before, their families had all lived in the same block of flats in Dover where, after a long history of violence against his wife, Michael Greegan beat her to death in the presence of their three children. After such a long time, can her death be tied to the acid attacks? Then the Daley case reopens, when autopsies show conclusively that the story he told the police could not possibly be true. Why did he lie? Was he the killer?

This series is very much character driven, so it’s good to read the books in order. I especially like the continuing developing relationship between Tom Romney and the members of the Dover CID. Each has individual strengths and weaknesses, and each makes important discoveries necessary to solve the crimes. Detection is very much a group effort. Tidy shows most of the action through Romney or DS Joy Marsh, giving enough personal detail to lend them authenticity. Like many fictional detectives, Romney often does not think highly of his superiors: “It was his firm belief that Superintendent Vine was desperate to move out of Dover--a posting she must surely have seen as just an opportunity, a stepping stone, a rung on the ladder--and on up the ever-sharpening pyramid of success. Romney was certain that Vine wanted Kent police’s top job one day. Romney almost believed that to that end she would strangle a litter of puppies for the chance to get her face on the telly.”

Tidy plays fair with foreshadowing and with presenting the evidence as it’s uncovered. Forensics are important, but most of Romney’s success comes from old-fashioned detective work--asking questions, examining answers repeatedly, noting discrepancies, understanding human nature. Given current world and US affairs, Tidy’s use of Edmund Burke’s “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” is particularly appropriate.

Setting is well established. “The scenery was magnificent on top of the cliffs. Everywhere the white winter glittered in its purity under the blackbird-egg-blue skies. Romney let his window down a touch for the freshest of air. Rising out of the frosted landscape, Dover castle managed to look like some huge novelty cake dusted with icing sugar. But still magnificent and majestic and solid and impenetrable.” Weather conditions and the countdown to Christmas Day keep the season important.

A WHITE-KNUCKLE CHRISTMAS is a strong police procedural, not just holiday high spirits. (A-)
 
A CHRISTMAS TO REMEMBER is Jennifer Lang’s twelfth novella in her Darcy and Elizabeth What If? series based on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It was published in free or inexpensive e-book format in 2016.

Fitzwilliam Darcy has had no contact with Elizabeth Bennet since his disastrous proposal and subsequent letter of explanation at Hunsford. He’s travelled extensively trying unsuccessfully to forget her. In early December at Pemberley, he finds a very young baby in a manager in his stable and in the stall Elizabeth Bennet with a head injury that’s produced temporary amnesia. He carries both into the house and sees that they are cared for. Elizabeth has travelled with only a maid from Longbourn as chaperone to attend to Lydia, who’d disappeared from Brighton that summer with George Wickham and not been heard from since. They are not married, Lydia has just given birth to a son, and they are broke. Wickham, on the verge of debtors’ prison, has come to Lambton to use Lydia and now his child to play on Darcy’s sympathy to raise money. When Wickham, drunk, sets off with the baby in the cold and snow, Elizabeth goes after him, struggles with him for the child, and is injured in a fall. She is able to reach the stables at Pemberley but not the house. Darcy rejoices at the chance to establish a relationship on good terms with Elizabeth. Determined to win her in marriage, he’s willing to protect Elizabeth and her family from disgrace, even if it means buying Wickham’s marriage to Lydia. Elizabeth is more than ever convinced that Darcy’s regard for his social standing kills any possibility of his renewing the proposal she’d now welcome.

Other than the ever-sleeping chaperone Lady Sarah, Darcy’s elderly great-aunt who acts as hostess for the house party, and a few servants, all the characters are Austen originals faithful to her conception. This is especially true of Mrs. Bennet, Lydia, and Wickham. One slight change casts Charles Bingley in a more favorable light in his treatment of Jane Bennet. He’d left Netherfield in the spring in part to give Jane a chance to determine her feelings for him without constant pressure from Mrs. Bennet, he intending to return in the summer. His father’s death in Yorkshire and his attendant responsibilities there prevent his return as planned.

Lang’s retelling of Pride and Prejudice as a Christmas story, complete with Christmas Eve proposal, is pleasant, if bland. (A-)
 
Magdalen Nabb’s DEATH OF AN ENGLISHMAN was published in the United Kingdom in 1981 and in the United States in 2001. It is part of her Marshal Guarnaccia Investigations series set in Florence. The story opens on December 22.

Marshal Guarnaccia, a Sicilian whose wife and sons live in Syracuse with his elderly mother, plans to return home for Christmas. Unfortunately, he is ill with influenza and unable to travel when a cleaner calls to report the murder of a resident Englishman A. Langley-Smythe. Young Carabiniere Bacci is first responder, but the Captain takes charge of the case when he discovers Guarnaccia’s condition. Langley-Smythe has influential relatives in England, so Detective Chief Inspector Lowestoft and Inspector Jeffreys of Scotland Yard are sent to Florence to assist in the case and protect the family’s interests.

I’m giving up at 76 of 185 pages. Several things bother me. One is the lack of characterization. Many characters, most notably the Captain, are not even named, much less developed. Guarnaccia is not yet actively involved in the case, and nothing except his love of his family makes him an attractive protagonist. All the British are stereotypes.

The plot meanders with little progress on the case. So far the most interesting discovery is fingerprints of seven other individuals in Langley-Smith’s apartment, when he seemingly had no friends or callers. Sense of place is the strongest element in DEATH OF AN ENGLISHMAN but is not enough to keep me reading.

No grade because not finished.
 
A BEAU BON-BON CHRISTMAS is Kate Bedlow’s novella sequel to Darcy and Elizabeth: Fair Trade, itself a fan fiction variant on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It was published in e-book format in 2016.

A BEAU BON-BON CHRISTMAS does not function well as a stand alone story. Many of its characters are carryovers of those introduced in Fair Trade, in which the Bennet girls, evicted from Longbourn by their father’s death, open a highly successful coffee shop in Meryton and help uncover a nest of French spies. Bedlow presupposes that readers will know their relationships with those from the canon. Little new is added to their personalities.

To an overabundance of continuing individuals, Bedlow introduces even more to A BEAU BON-BON CHRISTMAS, the most notable of whom is Commodore Jeremiah Harrington. He’s bought Netherfield Park and may, in Mrs. Bennet’s matchmaking plans, be a suitable husband for Kitty. He deserves more attention.

****POSSIBLE SPOILERS****

Bedlow makes the canonical characters much more twenty-first century than Regency in attitude and behavior. Lydia Bennet and Georgiana Darcy are now bosom friends. living together in London where they are the toast of the Ton. Both are having too much fun to mind the proprieties demanded of unmarried Regency ladies. Kitty still runs the Beau Bon-Bon, much to Mrs. Bennet’s disgust now that it’s no longer a matter of financial survival, and refuses to look for a husband; she’s training girls and women to become bakers and pastry cooks so that they have more and better-paid job opportunities. The Beau Bon-Bon sponsors a charity cooking contest to raise money for a home to care for disabled veterans. Bingley is angst-ridden over his ability to be a proper father to young son Thomas. Mrs. Bennet has an epiphany in which she sees herself as a vital, attractive woman at almost forty-five years old.

A BEAU BON-BON CHRISTMAS contains possible starting points for several novels: Commodore Harrington and his adaptation to Meryton society; Bingley and Darcy’s differences over the effect of the Corn Laws on the British working classes following the Napoleonic Wars; Kitty’s insistence on maintaining her independence; the Collins family at Longbourn. It has potentially pleasing characters. It fails because it attempts too much to be accommodated adequately within the novella length. (D)
 
Sally Gunning’s ICE WATER is the third book in her Peter Bartholomew cozy mystery series set on Nashtoba Island, somewhere off the coast of New England, beginning a couple of weeks before Christmas. It was published in 1993.

Things look good for Pete Bartholomew. His business Factotum, a general “do what you need to have done” agency, is busy doing everything from reading the newspaper to an elderly neighbor to building a barn; he has reliable employees, even if Andy is clumsy beyond belief; he’s looking forward to Christmas; and his ex-wife Connie is back in town, teaching at the high school. Then at Sarah Abrow’s Christmas party, a sniper kills Newby Dillingham with a clean head shot. Newby and his brother Ozzie are co-owners of Dillingham Bait Shop and Boat Charters; always at odds, they are divided over selling the land to developers Conner, Rice, and Peterson (locally known as CRAP) to build 200 condominiums. Newby refuses to sell, Ozzie wants to take the $500,000 and run. Locals are divided between those seeing the condos as a boon to the economy and those worried about their destruction of island environment and lifestyle. The realtor brokering the deal Nate Cox needs the sale to go through immediately. How desperate is he? Cyrus Pease bears a grudge from 1932 when he swapped the bait shop for the old Dillingham farm, convinced that he was cheated. At the community carol singing, the sniper barely misses Evelyn Waxman, another opponent of development; the sniper shoots Jerry Begges, who’s busy stringing Christmas tree lights on the little evergreen adorning the ridgepole of his new barn, in the shoulder; and the sniper shoots into the Christmas party at the school, destroying the punch bowl. Who is the sniper after, and why?

Of the Christmas-themed selections I’ve read so far this season, ICE WATER is the most involved with the spirit of Christmas. I can’t say more without doing a spoiler. It’s debatable whether it should be classified as a mystery or as a romance novel because Pete pays as much attention to his ex-wife Connie and his angst over her return, how he feels about her now, how she feels about him, and whether there’s a possible second chance for them. The story line drags on much longer than necessary and lacks foreshadowing of the killer’s identity and motive. There’s little sense of resolution for either the murder or Pete’s relationship.

Nashtoba’s permanent population is given as 400, and at times it seems Gunning meant to include them all. Many have no function in advancing the plot, serving as local color only, not developed as individuals. Pete is 36 years old, Connie approximately the same, and both react like teenagers. They emote and argue and sleep together but fail to rebuild their trust. I’d like to smack both upside the head and tell them to grow up.

Gunning includes some atmospheric detail but not as much as might be expected in a book that emphasizes the Christmas spirit and its promise of new beginnings. ICE WATER is adequate. (B-)
 
MR. DARCY’S CHRISTMAS ANGEL is Katy Green’s novella variant on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I found no publication date.

****POSSIBLE SPOILERS****

Fitzwilliam Darcy has no contact with Elizabeth Bennet since arranging the marriage between her sister Lydia and George Wickham. When Darcy is injured in a fall from his horse, he contracts a virulent fever and, in critical condition, calls repeatedly for Elizabeth. On advice from Darcy’s physician, Colonel Fitzwilliam goes to Hertfordshire to convince Elizabeth to come to Pemberley. Elizabeth, who regrets refusing Darcy’s proposal and loves him, is eager to go. To protect Elizabeth’s reputation, Colonel Fitzwilliam and Aunt Gardiner, who’s at Longbourn with her family for a long Christmas visit, explain that Mrs. Gardiner wants to visit her friends in Lambton, taking Elizabeth with her for company. In the meantime, Darcy has fevered dreams of what might have been, had he not insulted Elizabeth at the Meryton assembly and had he been open about his relationship with Wickham. Elizabeth arrives, Darcy’s fever breaks, he proposes again, she accepts, and they are married the end of December at Pemberley with only Mrs. Gardiner and Colonel Fitzwilliam in attendance.

The plot is oddly structured in MR. DARCY’S CHRISTMAS ANGEL. Darcy has two extended dream sequences, but the action skips from Darcy’s perceiving Elizabeth as an angel when she arrives to his fever breaking and his recognition that she’s really there. Green gives none of Elizabeth’s reaction to Darcy’s condition during the day and night between those two events. A horse-drawn sled ride is the most exciting event in Darcy’s convalescence.

Besides the physician and the housekeeper Mrs. Reynolds, only four characters are active in the story: Darcy, Elizabeth, Mrs. Gardiner, and Colonel Fitzwilliam. The Bennets don’t know the real reason for Elizabeth’s going to Lambton until Darcy writes Mr. Bennet asking his consent to their wedding. We are told that Charles Bingley married Jane Bennet, but that he has been cool in his friendship with Darcy since. Georgiana is away visiting relatives in Kent. No one opposes the marriage because no one knows about it until after the fact. Green tells us that both Darcy and Elizabeth have changed, but we do not see the process in either of them.

Nothing’s particularly wrong with MR. DARCY’S CHRISTMAS ANGEL, but it is bland with no sense of immediacy or suspense. (C-)
 
“The Boxdale Inheritance” is the third short story in P. D. James’s holiday anthology THE MISTLETOE MURDER AND OTHER STORIES. The collection was published in e-book format in 2016.

Canon Hubert Boxdale, godfather of Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh of the Metropolitan Police, faces a moral quandary. His step-grandmother Allegra Porter Boxdale recently died, leaving him a bequest of £50,000. The canon hesitates to accept it because “Aunt Allie” had been tried for the arsenic poisoning of her much older husband in 1902 and acquitted, despite damning evidence and the widespread that she was guilty as sin. He means not to accept the legacy if she had killed his grandfather. Since the canon had been four years old in 1901, he asks Dalgliesh to examine the justice of the verdict. Using his wealthy amateur criminologist and friend Aubrey Glatt, whose specialty is Victorian and Edwardian poisoners, as a source of information, Dalgliesh forms a theory of the crime and confirms it with Marguerite Goddard, Augustus Boxdale’s granddaughter who’d been present the night of his death.

“The Boxdale Inheritance” falls within the Christmas-setting category since Augustus Boxdale became ill on Christmas Day and died on Boxing Day 1901. Its structure is simple, with all information fairly presented, but James creates a satisfying surprise ending. It is well to remember Holmes’s dictum: “...when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Considering the short story length, James’s characters show excellent depth, especially Canon Boxdale. “Dalgliesh told himself that he should have remembered what, as a small boy, he had discovered about Uncle Hubert’s conscience--that it operated as a warninger bell and that, unlike most people, Uncle Hubert never pretended that it hadn’t sounded or that he hadn’t heard it or that, having heard it, something must be wrong with the mechanism.” In comparison, James presumes we already know Dalgliesh.

P.D. James in most excellent form. (flat A)
 
Sarah Johrnson’s BLAME THE MISTLETOE is a Christmas variant on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejludice. It was published in free or inexpensive e-book format in 2015.

****POSSIBLE SPOILERS****

BLAME THE MISTLETOE begins 1 December 1811 with Georgiana Darcy’s concern about her brother’s unhappiness and her realization that both he and Charles Bingley suffer from their departure from the Bennet sisters in Hertfordshire. She soon for the three of them to spend the holidays at Netherfield. Darcy begins changing Elizabeth’s opinion of him when he catches her when she falls from a tree owhere she’d climbed to collect mistletoe. George Wickham’s presence in Meryton offers problems, but his behavior towards Georgiana opens Elizabeth’s eyes to his true nature. As they meet socially, Darcy reveals his feelings and becomes more accepting of Elizabeth’s family, while she comes to recognize her misjudgment of him and her own growing feelings. Lydia and Georgiana’s generous placement of mistletoe and calls for forfeits to be paid encourage their developing love. When Bingley and Jane become engaged, Darcy proposes but agrees to a formal courtship to give Elizabeth time to know her own feelings for him. Mr. Collins, who returned to Longbourn to spend Christmas near Charlotte Lucas, writes of it to Lady Catherine de Bourgh, but Elizabeth and Darcy ignore her letters denouncing their courtship. They are married by special license before Twelfth Night.

Plot structure follows the original story line, adding only some satisfying scenes. Elizabeth slaps an intoxicated Wickham’s face when he accosts Georgiana on the street in Meryton, and Darcy breaks his nose. Mr. Collins hears Darcy’s opinion expressed clearly to his face as he’s ejected from Longbourn. The compressed time scale offers little time for the dramatic attitude changes in both Darcy and Elizabeth, and the lack of any other opposition from Lady Catherine negates the impact of her letter.

Some aspects of several characters change in BLAME THE MISTLETOE. Mr. Bennet is perceptive about Darcy’s changed feelings about Elizabeth, and he is active both in protecting Elizabeth from her mother’s emotionality and in helping Darcy make Wickham’s history of debt known in Meryton. Johnson has Mrs. Bennet’s “nerves” result from her anxiety that her own background in trade not reflect negatively on her daughters and husband. I don’t, however, buy this. Elizabeth is so eager for some small sign of regard from her mother that she sprains her ankle in a fall, trying to please her mother by gathering the mistletoe for which Mrs. Bennet’s decoration of Longbourn is praised. Lydia’s misbehavior involving the officers becomes more innocently rambunctious than flirtatious.

A couple of common sense observations bother me. One is the speed with which Elizabeth’s ankle heals; she suffers no ill-effects after just a few days despite spending much time on her feet outdoors. In fact, the Bennet sisters and Georgiana spend an inordinate number of hours outside in the cold and the snow--on a long sleigh ride and races, then building snow forts and holding a massive snowball fight, then building a snowman, all on the same day. Editing problems include whether Wickham’s commanding officer is Colonel Forrester or Colonel Forster. Use of apostrophe in the plural possessive of the name “Darcy” is incorrect.

Still, BLAME THE MISTLETOE is a happy variant. (B)
 
MURDER AT THE OLD VICARAGE is one of Jill McGown’s police procedural series featuring Acting Chief Detective Lloyd and Detective Sergeant Judy Hill, with whom he shares both a long-standing professional relationship and an intermittent affair. It was published in 1983.

Some two months before Christmas, Joanna Wheeler Elston, a battered wife, returns to her parents’ home. Her father George Wheeler is deeply unhappy as vicar of St Augustus in Byford, knowing he has no faith; he’s troubled by his attraction to newcomer Eleanor Langton, and he despises his son-in-law Graham Elston. His wife Marian Wheeler, the quintessential earth-mother, reassures him that Joanna will not return to Graham. On Christmas Eve, Graham comes to the vicarage and, despite Joanna’s agreeing to return to him, beats her again. Left alone in the house, the drunken Graham is battered to death with a poker. Lloyd and Hill quickly conclude that the murder is domestic, not the work of an intruder, but which of the family is guilty?

The plot in MURDER AT THE OLD VICARAGE is drawn out longer than needs be, devoting as much time to the relationship between Lloyd and the married Hill, which has reached a crisis point, as to the murder. An unforeshadowed coincidence is essential to the solution of the murder. Having only four suspects restricts possible action and makes for repetition as alibis and stories are checked and rechecked. When character is considered, only one person possesses the assurance and personality to commit murder.

Characters are well developed with shifts in point of view that individualize them. George Wheeler is appealing: “[Wheeler] locked away the collection money--he must have convinced some of the adults...because there was a fiver in there. He picked up the cash-box, then paused, and opened it again. Another fiver joined the first, and he locked the box again. He’d make sure it went to Save the Children or someone. The church roof could wait. Church roofs didn’t cry.” (27)

Sense of place is not developed and, despite emphasis on families at Christmastime, the season is not essential to the plot. The story could occur anywhere, any time. MURDER AT THE OLD VICARAGE is not one of the stronger books in the series. (B-)
 
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