Readingomnivore Reviews

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Nell Harding’s THE DOG HOUSE was available as a free or inexpensive Kindle download published in 2013. It features new Ph.D. Fiona Buchanan, who’s renting Silverbeck Cottage on the edge of the Loch Murray estate run by Colin Parker. She’d just completed her doctorate based on research on nearby Mackenzie House, where she discovered notebooks and poetry of Sean Campbell. She now has a small grant and a year’s time to write a book on his life and work. She’s living with an unruly dog Livingstone, who manages to disrupt a society wedding on the estate grounds and to damage the expensive leather upholstery in a guest’s convertible. Son of the estate owners, Colin Parker is infuriated at Livingstone’s behavior.

I’m giving up at 20%. Fiona has a chip on her shoulder about the upper classes; she doesn’t step up to her responsibility as Livingstone’s owner, and she exhibits no evidence of being an eminent historian as reputed. Colin Parker is an aristocratic snob who doesn’t want to be bothered by ‘little people.” His estate manager must lay out his local responsibilities as if for a teenager, when Colin is 31 years old. Colin seems to have no sense of humor. Shifting point of view between Fiona and Colin doesn’t add significantly to their characterization. Neither is appealing.

Plot is obvious, even at this point in THE DOG HOUSE. Despite being in the Highlands of Scotland, surely one of the most picturesque areas on earth, there’s little sense of place. Writing style is pedestrian, with incorrect usage of plural possessive names.

No grade because not finished. I’d rather eat cold leftover oatmeal.

 

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Janine Ivy’s TAKING OUT THE TRAILER TRASH was a free or inexpensive Kindle download. It features Charlene Crawford, a divorced former teacher who’s sold one romance novel and is working hard to finish her second on time. To make ends meet while she’s writing, she’s taken a job as the resident manager of the Happy Times RV Park outside Biloxi, Mississippi. She’s happy enough with her pets (the dog Boo, the cat Jinx, parakeet Loretta) and her writing, but her life goes to pot quickly when she discover the body of resident Harold Dulaney, who’s been shot in the head, allegedly by his cocaine dealers. Before she knows it, Charlene is involved with the Dixie Mafia and vengeance for a thirty-year-old murder.

Events are all seen through Charlene’s eyes, and she is the best developed of the characters. She’s clearly out of her depth, not knowing with whom or what she’s involved. “Managing a small RV park wasn’t supposed to be like this. She hadn’t expected to get involved with any of the tenants. It had seemed like the perfect job some someone who didn’t work and play well with others. No office politics. No co-workers. The owners had told her she would jut be there to make sure repairs were made and to enforce the rules. Nobody told her she would be dealing with murderous drug dealers, old hippies with fake IDs and secret past, wannabe trashy talk show stars, and ex-showgirl septuagenarians who were too daring for their own good.” She pulls a major TSTL when she leaves her home to go after her animals. She knows she’s in danger, she’s been told to stay put, but she goes anyway, setting herself up to be tazed and kidnapped. The actual detection is done by Officer Pierre Gustav Toutant Beauregard “Gus” Duran, of the Ocean Springs Police Department, who is (surprise!) a handsome hunk attracted to Charlene. Other characters have interesting back stories.

****POSSIBLE SPOILER****

Plot is rather improbable, but it’s easy to relax and enjoy the swift action. The person behind the murders at Happy Times is not referred to directly before the climax, but the identity and the motives make sense. The good guys escape only through the coincidence that the Mafia boss has a heart attack, and his troops are more concerned with getting him to a hospital than with his ally’s agenda.

Setting is the most important element in TAKING OUT THE TRAILER TRASH. Using a RV park as the locale serves much the same function as the resort hotel or the cruise liner so often the setting for mysteries from the Golden Age, providing for people with all sorts of backgrounds and connections to come together and interact. Allusions to contemporary events and people abound, including Charlene’s crush on chef Guy Fieri and Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. Physical details anchor the story to the Gulf Coast and Biloxi: “These [wood sculptures] were carved from the old oaks that were killed by the storm surge of Katrina. ... The salt water just washed in here an threw everything around, and it killed a lot of the oak trees that had been here for hundreds of years. It destroyed the roots and all. The sculptures were done by volunteer artists. ... There was one old tree that was carved into guardian angels because three people clung to it for three hours when the storm went over and managed to stay alive. When the tree died, the people whose lives it saved asked one of the artists to carve it into angels.” *

Two things bothered me about TAKING OUT THE TRAILER TRASH. One was the lack of Southern speech patterns in the characters. Charlene is from Memphis, others from New Orleans and from Biloxi, but they don’t sound like it. The other is the poor formatting that led to funny indentations or none, several blank pages at a time, and insertion of sentence fragments within a totally unrelated paragraph; editing could have been better--viscous is not the same as vicious.

TAKING OUT THE TRAILER TRASH isn’t a great mystery, but it’s a pleasant read. (B-)

*For information about the Biloxi Sculpture Garden--http://www.google.com/search?q=Katrina+sculpture+garden&client=safari&rls=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=C8yxU4nSHePD8QHVmoGQCw&ved=0CCsQsAQ

 

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Madison Johns’s ARMED AND OUTRAGEOUS was a free or inexpensive Kindle e-book published in 2011. It features 72-year-old Agnes Barton, widow of Tadium, Michigan, and her best friend Eleanor Mason, 82-year-old who drives a 1980 Cadillac Seville, poorly. Agnes has some background in investigations for attorney Andrew Hart years before and, when tourist Jennifer Martin disappears along the same stretch of Highway 23 as her granddaughter Sophia the year before, she senses a connection. Unsatisfied with the police investigation of Sophia’s disappearance, Agnes and Eleanor decide to check it out themselves.

I’m giving up at 35%, so I’ll not be assigning a grade. So far, there’s the unsolved murder in 1968 of a family of six in what’s become a popular bed and breakfast, the disappearance of three other girls on the same stretch of highway as Sophia and Jennifer, an inept sheriff, Jennifer’s mother’s disappearance without investigation some ten years before, Jennifer’s boyfriend beaten almost to a pulp, and an attack on bait-shop owner Roy Garrison for no apparent reason. Eleanor’s been in a physical fight in an ice cream shop and shot one of Garrison’s assailants, Agnes has been shoved down by Jennifer Martin’s father, and they’ve bought sex toys at a backroom store in East Tawas. They’ve been warned off by both the sheriff and the Michigan State Police but have no intention of quitting. I’m willing to suspend disbelief, but enough already.

I don’t find the age jokes, sex among the elderly jokes, and raunchy remarks funny, especially since neither protagonist is an appealing personality. Don’t think ARMED AND OUTRAGEOUS is worth the time it’d take to finish.

 

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Jonathon King’s THE BLUE EDGE OF MIDNIGHT was originally published in 2002. Its protagonist is former Philadelphia cop Max Freeman who, after killing a twelve-year-old in self-defense in a convenience store robbery, resigns from the force and moves to the edge of the Everglades, fighting his guilt. But one morning he finds the body of a young child in the river, the fourth who’s been taken and murdered, their bodies left in the swamp and its GPS coordinates sent to the police. Who’s taking the children, and why? Max becomes involved when a GPS device is planted in his cabin, so he continues until he’s solved the cases.

The sense of place in THE BLUE EDGE OF MIDNIGHT is outstanding. The opening paragraph sets the scene: “I was a mile upriver, my feet planted on the stained concrete dam, back bent to the task of yanking my canoe over the abutment. It was past midnight and a three-quarter moon hung n the South Florida sky. In the spillover behind me, tea-colored water from the falls burbled and swirled, roiling up against itself and then spinning off in curls and spirals until going flat and black again downstream. Ahead I could see the outlines of thick tree limbs and dripping vine and the slow curve of water bending around a curve before it disappeared into darkness.” (1)

King is equally adept with the spirit of place and people: “...when the road from Tampa to Miami was finally finished in 1946 and dubbed the Tamiami Trail, it had effectively bypassed the first attempted roadway. The original Loop Road would remain unfinished, a trail to nowhere. And a trail to nowhere, in the middle of nowhere, draws a unique breed of residents. For half a century the Loop Road was little more than a jump-off point for alligator hunters, exotic plume hunters and not a few moonshiners. Even in the years when killing off endangered alligators and snowy egrets became illegal and prohibition kicked in, the Loop was still a jump-off for poachers and white lightning runners, bail jumpers and criminals who needed a place where few questions were asked and authority ignored.” (128)

The plot is fairly laid out with appropriate foreshadowing and a believable conclusion. Max’s role is as he’s both suspect, catalyst, and bait for both police and the killer.

Max Freeman is a complex protagonist, haunted by his Philadelphia memories, both professional and personal. He’s still not sleeping much at night, some two years or more since the boy’s death. Seeing the action through Max’s eyes makes him easy to identify with. Other characters, including his friend and attorney Billy Manchester and the police officers--Hammonds, Diaz, Richards, are realistic individuals.

I recommend THE BLUE EDGE OF MIDNIGHT highly. (A)

 

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Joaanne Sydney Lessner’s BAD PUBLICITY was a free or inexpensive Kindle download published in 2013. I’m quitting after barely beginning. The protagonist Isobel Spice, a temp at Dove and Flight Public Relations, has discovered the body of a pain-in-the-keester client to whom she’d just served coffee. When she returns with snacks, he’s dead. Police say his death is from natural causes but, based on her previous experience with discovering a body, Isobel thinks James Whiteley had been murdered. She has no intention of staying out of the case.

Isobel comes across as a dingbat; none of the characters are appealing; the only surprise about the victim’s death is that he managed to live so long, he was so foul. No sense of place, rapid shifts in point of view that don’t add to characterization. No grade because not finished.

 

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A PINT OF MURDER was written by Charlotte MacLeod under the pseudonym of Alisa Craig. It was published in print format in 1980 and in e-format in 2012. It is the first in her mystery series featuring Detective Inspector Madoc Rhys of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and his wife, the former Janet Wadman.

Janet Wadman is home for the summer to recuperate from appendicitis surgery, when her elderly neighbor Agatha Treadway dies from eating home-canned green beans in which botulism developed. Janet thinks this unlikely because of the impeccable care Mrs. Treadway took in preparing all her own food and eating none prepared by anyone else; when Janet finds an unopened jar of green beans that had been cut and not broken by hand, she knows her friend was murdered. The death of local doctor, Mrs. Treadway’s nephew by marriage Henry Druffitt, brings in the RCMP in the person of Rhys Madoc, who quickly solves the case and falls for Janet.

The plot of A PINT OF MURDER is fairly laid out, moves swiftly, and comes to a satisfactory conclusion on all points. It’s enlivened by ironic humor in description of action and character: “Mrs. Fewter had perked up a good deal. She had a story to tell and a willing audience to tell it to. The artist can forget his private woe in the expression of his art.”

The action is seen through the eyes of Janet and Madoc, and they are both sympathetic characters. “Rhys took to Janet far more quickly than she to him. He had known very good women and very bad women and a great many who were neither the one nor the other, though some of the variations had been interesting. This was his kind of woman. He liked the way Janet came back from the Mansion, told him it was all settled, sat him down at the kitchen table, filled his mug with tea, his saucer with pie, and his head with facts. She talked the way she cooked, leaving out nothing that mattered and not trying to spoil the flavor with a lot of fancy touches.”

Setting is Pitcherville, New Brunswick, a small town like many others in many locations: “...to have the Mounties in would be to acknowledge publicly that something was very wrong indeed, and the righteous folk of Pitcherville would envision the finger of scorn and derision being pointed at their village from Saint Stephen to Dalhousie. They wouldn’t like that one bit, and they’d like it a great deal less if the whole case fizzled out and left nothing by a mighty stink behind.”

A PINT OF MURDER is a light, well-written summer read. (A-)

 

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Donna Huston Murray’s FINAL ARRANGEMENTS was issued in print in 1996 and e-format in 2011. It features Ginger Barnes in Murray’s Main Line mystery series.

Ginger Barnes become involved in the murder of her mother Cynthia Shruve’s friend Winifred “Iffy” Bigelow when she drives the two women to the Philadelphia International Flower Show. Iffy is a major exhibitor, in the running for the Sweepstakes award. But someone strangles her with her own scarf at the show. Who wanted her dead--obsessed competitors in the flower show / garden club world, her niece Julia Stone who’s just out of a psychiatric hospital, or one of the people about whom she’s gossiped and lied? Cynthia begs Ginger to investigate Iffy’s murder, so she does.

The plot hangs together, though there’s little reason to suspect the guilty party until Ginger makes her announcement to the police. The climax is unnecessarily melodramatic. Why should Ginger and Lt. Mills chase the killer from the boarding gate through the terminal when he could have phoned ahead and had that person held by security at the gate? Even before 9/11, would not three people sprinting through the terminal at a dead run excite some participation by airport security? Another feature of the plot that bothers me is the personal relationship between Julia Stone and her psychiatrist Dr. Willoby McDonald. Isn’t it against the rules of the profession for a doctor to have a personal relationship with a current patient? They are engaged if not married by the conclusion of the book.

I find few of the characters sympathetic, including Ginger Barnes, the first person narrator. Her explanation for interference in a police investigation is self-serving: “It’s probably a character flaw with a long fancy name, but I like to get to know what makes a person tick. Don’t give me the press-kit fodder you put over on most people, I want the stuff you keep from your mother and sometimes even your self. No one can hide from somebody who is looking closely enough, and for me, reading people accurately has become both a bad habit and a necessity. Until I’m satisfied, I can’t decide how I should feel or behave.” Why should any of the people she questions answer them? She has absolutely no official standing, though she does report what she discovers to her friend from grade school, Lt. Mills. Other characters are less well developed, with many more than strictly necessary for the plot.

Plenty of physical locations tie FINAL ARRANGEMENTS to the Philadelphia area, but the spirit of the Main Line comes through only occasionally: “The neighborhood was older with broad flat yards, no sidewalks, and private driveways about six car-lengths long. Formidable houses, mostly Colonial in style, looked in perfect proportion to the tall, thick-trunked oaks that sheled them like annuity funds set up before the invention of income tax.”

FINAL ARRANGEMENTS is okay but nothing special. (C)

 

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Diana J. Oaks’s ONE THREAD PULLED: THE DANCE WITH MR. DARCY is a variation of Jane Austen’s PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. It was published in 2012 as a free or inexpensive Kindle e-book.

With few exceptions, the characters are faithful to Austen’s originals. The exceptions include Mr. Collins, who attempts to compromise Elizabeth to force her into marriage with him; Mary Bennet, who blooms under the influence of love for Mr. Collins, even though she eventually rejects him and Caroline Bingley, who in her obsessive fixation on marrying Darcy moves into madness.

Major plot variations include Jane’s being thrown from her runaway horse on the way to her dinner at Netherfield; when Bingley finds her, he confesses his love and Jane, in her concussed state, thinks they are married and discloses her feelings. Bingley soon seeks and obtains Mr. Bennet’s permission to court Jane. Lady Catherine comes in state to Longbourn to deliver Mr. Collins for his visit and to choose for him which of the Bennet girls he should marry; she chooses Elizabeth, which sets up Collins’s prolonged courtship so encouraged by Mrs. Bennet. When Wickham appears with the militia in Meryton, Darcy immediately warns Mr. Bennet about his behavior and sends for Colonel Fitzwilliam, who discloses it to Colonel Forester. Lady Catherine storms about in London and back to Meryton, looking for Darcy and insisting that his engagement to Anne de Bourgh be announced immediately. In the meantime, Darcy and Elizabeth come to know their own feelings for each other.

Elizabeth falls ill of a dangerous fever at the Netherfield ball; she’s confined there under Jane’s care. Wickham, scared into leaving the militia and hiding out in London, tries to blackmail Darcy into staying unmarried as the price to prevent revelation of a compromising letter written by Georgiana during the episode in Ramsgate. Colonel Fitzwilliam saves Elizabeth from compromise by Mr. Collins; he warns Bingley of Collins’s behavior and also of his suspicions about Caroline’s stability before joining Darcy in London. Caroline attempts to poison Elizabeth with laudanum. In London Wickham has been severely beaten and dumped on Darcy’s doorstep. Wickham dies from the beating, and Darcy is suspected briefly of his murder. He and Colonel Fitzwilliam recover Georgiana’s letter, which shows she had not been compromised, and destroy it. Darcy immediately returns to Meryton to become engaged to Elizabeth. Mr. Collins had been the stepson of Willam Collins, Mr. Bennet’s cousin, so he is not heir to Longbourn. Mary Bennet is courted by Mr. Timmons, the widower vicar of the local church. Whew!

ONE THREAD PULLED: THE DANCE WITH MR. DARCY is too long. There’s enough material for at least two full books. The pace, despite all the additional action, is glacially slow. Shifts between point of view and locations make for choppy reading. Word choice isn’t always felicitous--Elizabeth is described as showing a “coy grin.” The manuscript needed to be proofread. “Discrete” and “discreet” are two distinctly different words, as are “canter” and “cantor.” There is a major anachronism. When Wickham’s dying body is dumped on Darcy’s steps, a passerby summons a policeman who enters Darcy’s house and questions him and Georgiana about Wickham’s death. It’s doubtful that a questioner would be so aggressive in his interrogation of such a high member of London society as Mr. Darcy, and it’s harder to believe that Darcy, as high in the instep as he is at presumption and inappropriate behavior, would submit to it. However, there was no municipal police force in England in Austen’s time. Criminal investigations were handled by the Bow Street Runners, under the direction of a magistrate. Oaks does later have Sir Vincent Parker, an officer of Bow Street, take over the inquiry, though it is Darcy and Fitzeilliam who discover what happened to Wickham.

As Austen fan fiction goes, ONE THREAD PULLED: THE DANCE WITH MR. DARCY is above average. (B)

 

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Lisa Patton’s WHISTLIN’ DIXIE IN A NOR’EASTER was a free or inexpensive Kindle published in 2009. It is the story of transplanted Southerners buying and operating a bed and breakfast in Vermont. I’m not going to assign a grade because I’m not finishing it.

Why do authors insist on writing novels involving Southerners when they don’t or can’t do Southern speech patterns? Leelee, the first person narrator, is a native of Memphis, Tennessee, educated at Ole Miss, but nothing in her narrative voice indicates it. Up through chapter three, her Christian name is not given.

WHISTLIN’ DIXIE IN A NOR’EASTER opens in Memphis but, despite mention of Corky’s, Little Pig’s, and the Mississippi River, there’s little sense of place. This is supremely important in a novel set in the South, since many believe our defining characteristic is our consciousness of our roots buried deep in the soil of our home.

As for the purchase of the Vermont Haus Inn, the building is run down and will require major renovation and refurnishing. Neither Leelee nor her husband Baker Satterfield, whose brilliant idea this is, knows anything about running a bed and breakfast, yet they are ready to pay nearly half a million dollars, plus whatever the make-over costs, for the privilege of learning the hard way.

Sorry, can’t face it. No grade.

 

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Ruth Ross’s TWO WIDOWS AND THE THRIFT STORE MURDERS is a free or inexpensive Kindle e-book published in 2010. Its first person narrator is Millicent Mahoney, a widow in Lynnwood, Washington, whose mother Margaret Cisneros lives with her. Millie is a self-confessed dabbler: paints, makes jewelry, ordained minister in the Universal Truth Church, life coach, medical assistant, card reader, actress in local theater, member of the City Council, part-time employee of the Lynnwood Ledger. She considers herself a writer.

Millie and her mother have a hobby of shopping thrift shops. At the Helping Hands and Helping Hearts charity shop (4H), Millie buys a wooden box inlaid with abalone shell. She finds hidden in its secret bottom a will signed by Ora Bigelow, a member of the Board of Directors who recently died. Shortly thereafter, Robert “Bud” Harper, a homeless man who usually slept at 4H and served as night watchman, is killed in what’s thought to be a break-in gone bad. Millie is able to pass some background information on Bud to her police department friend Mitch Bowers. She doesn’t, however, mention the will but decides she’ll investigate it on her own. This is the point--29%--at which I give up.

I don’t find Millie an appealing character. She’s rattles on without saying much, goes into great detail about a card reading she does to examine her feelings about Ora Bigelow and her family, and has no reason whatsoever except curiosity for her poking around, especially since Ora’s death appears to be natural causes. I question whether even a City Council member can call the Police Department Information officer and be e-mailed a copy of the crime scene report on an active case, as Millie does. She goes to Ora’s house and meets an attractive elderly neighbor (Millie’s fifty years old) who tells her everything he knows about Ora and her family--a sister Cora and nephew Curtis Dalton, both of whom have criminal records and no reason to love Ora.

I like cozy mysteries, but I do like for there to be some good reason for the amateur to be involved, and I appreciate realism. I’d love for someone being questioned to tell the protagonist, “It’s none of your business. Go away!”

No grade because I don’t think I can hack the rest.

 

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STONE COLD CRAZY is the fourth book and last to date in Shannon Hill’s mystery series featuring Sheriff Littlepage Eller of Crazy, Virigina, and her cat deputy Boris. It was published in 2011 in e-format.

Lil has recovered from the physical effects of her being kidnpped; she’s “hanging out” with deputy Punk Sims since, as his boss, it’d be against regulations for them to date. Cousin Jack Elder has bought the disputed Grenville tract of land for a small family resort whose tourists will revitalize Crazy’s economy, but his consultant is Steven Kipling, Lil’s former fiance who dumped her at their rehearsal dinner. Steven has his own plans for development in Crazy. Life in Crazy is moving in its usual abnormal way when Adam Weed’s home is totally destroyed by a pipe bomb. A flyer denouncing Virginia US Senator Dan Weed found in the Weeds’ mailbox brings the FBI into the case; a local extremist tries to bomb Lil’s house, then the nearby town of Sayers is taken out by the accidental explosion of stockpiled pipe bombs and makings for an Oklahoma City-type bomb. The Feds solve the terrorist bombings, but Lil gets the Crazy bomber and foils Steven.

I’ve enjoyed this series. I like Lil’s Southern story-telling voice as the first person narrator. I like the cast of continuing characters, believably quirky individuals, especially Aunt Marge. “...thanks to Aunt Marge, my love life resembled the Sahara: a lot of dry with an occasional oasis. Other kids got a talk about the birds and bees. Aunt Marge’s talk with me, when I was all of 12, consisted of descriptions of pregnancy, STDs, and custody disputes that would scare anyone into buying a chastity belt and throwing away the key.” (5) I like plots structured with appropriate foreshadowing and satisfactory conclusions. I like the humor.

What I enjoy most is the sense of place. Physical descriptions of Crazy and its environs are lyrical: “The hollow was beautiful. Here and there you could see where someone had taken an acre or two for timber, scattered with younger trees, or where a storm had toppled a giant and done the same work. Rhododendrons sported late blossoms and laurels flashed white. Along the stream tumbling its way to Elk Creek, ferns and mosses covered the ground in sun-dappled greens. The light poured through the leaves, and glinted gold off the water. As we moved upstream, a deer track veered off, and I pushed along it to a boulder in which tiny garnets marched in perfect lines. I remembered a science teacher telling us that it was a sign of something to do with the formation of the surrounding metamorphic rock, but it looked like magic.” (19-20)

Hill also gets the spirit of Crazy and its people right. “Church is a great place to keep your finger on the pulse of the town, find out what people are talking about. That Sunday, the two big topics were me getting stood up--and I’d love to know how that got around--and the rally that Freddie Tyler and his friends were having out by the highway. Opinion was divided on the latter, mostly because it was felt that a political rally on a Sunday was tacky. Also, for the Baptists, downright inconsiderate, since they’d miss it from having to attend afternoon services.” (128)

That being said, i was a bit disappointed in STONE COLD CRAZY. The humorous element isn’t as well developed and Boris’s slice and dice of people who threaten Lil less pronounced. Still, it’s well worth a read. (B)

P. S. Please, Shannon Hill, more Lil and Boris soon.

 

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A QUESTION OF MURDER is the sixth book in Eric Wright’s Charlie Salter mystery series set in Toronto, Canada. It was published in 1988, a classic police procedural.

The entire Toronto police force is caught up in preparations for a visit by a royal princess, except for Superintendent Orliff’s Special Affairs Centre, who’s picking up all sorts of odd jobs seconded by other divisions concentrating on the visit. Charlie has two assignments. One involves finding for Scotland Yard who’s been forging landscape paintings by Amis Settle. The second involves identifying whoever sent threatening letters to merchants on exclusive Cumberland Street in upscale Yorkville, warning them to stop their opposition to street vendors. The letters seem harmless, but Danny Pearson, estranged husband of children’s bookshop owner Ruth Pearson, is killed by a bomb planted in the van belonging to the bookstore. Was the bomb intended for HRH, who’d toured the street minutes before, for Ruth, or for Danny Pearson? Salter and his legmen, Constables Ranovic (seconded from undercover drug detail) and Brennan (fresh out of police college) do much slogging before the bombing case comes together.

One of the things I like best about this series is the sense of Charlie Salter as a real person. Though he compartmentalizes work and home, Wright gives enough of each to make him a believable man. He’s concerned when Superintendent Orliff announces early retirement coming up shortly. Charlie’s been stalled in his career before, and he’s not sure he wants to break in with a new boss. Should he retire? And what is going on with son Seth’s new fascination with his grandfather Salter’s life? Wright’s very good at creating appealing characters, though a number of those in A QUESTION OF MURDER are superfluous to the requirements of the plot.

The plot in A QUESTION OF MURDER contains foreshadowing of part of the solution to the bombing, but Wright’s misdirection provides a neat surprise ending that’s still logically set up. There’s less sense of place than in earlier books in the series. Still, a good read. (B)

 

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BACKYARD BONES is the second book in Nancy Lynn Jarvis’s mystery series featuring Santa Cruz, California, realtor Regan McHenry. It was available as an inexpensive or free e-book. The formating is strange, involving problems with margins, indentations, and different font sizes appearing on the same page.

Regan McHenry sells Rick and Joan Whitlaw a house in the backyard of which the previous owners buried a dog many years before; the Whitlaw sons, ages nine and six, attempt to excavate it, instead finding the skeleton of a Native American. When they next dig for the dog, the body they uncover is that of a young woman, not dead long, nude with a pentagram carved on her chest. Her clothing turns up buried in the woods on the adjoining property, owned by Wiccans. The girl, Lydia Feeney, had been three months pregnant, a troubled seventeen-year-old who’d been a groupie for Regan’s son Alex’s rock band, resident at a nearby shelter for teens run by Reverend and Mrs. John Simon, babysitter for the Wiccan Paisleys, and interested in Rick Whitlaw’s campaign for State Assembly. She had been enrolled at Cabrillo College and auditing classes at the University of California at Santa Cruz. She’d talked to Mithrell Paisley about the teacher who’d taught her about life, and she was looking forward to their marriage. So who killed her? Naturally Regan gets involved with finding the killer.

Characterization is good. Regan is believable--determined, usually smart about assessing character, constantly curious, empathetic with her clients. “Regan ...had an Irish temper, and regardless of how hard she tried not to be judgmental, she was angry with the person responsible for despoiling Mithrell and Kirby’s sacred trees. She seethed every time she thought of a person in the woods carving the words murderer and a pentagram into their bark, and she grew even angrier when she thought of the fear Mithrell had endured because of the vandal.” (170-1) These qualities do not, however, exempt her from a major league TSTL when she, after a discourse on the stupidity of Nancy Drew for putting herself into dangerous situations, does exactly the same thing. Other characters are also realistic.

The plot seems to be meant to surprise with the identity of Lydia’s killer, but an experienced reader should have no trouble making the identification early on in the story. Foreshadowing is heavy-handed. The climax involves the killer’s boasting confession to Regan, explaining why she has to die. Perhaps I’m naive about the level of the security checks for passengers boarding planes, but it seems unlikely that a person could get through with $30,000 in cash in a carry-on without being discovered. There’s much more about the purchase and sale of houses than needed, though this may be intended as a realistic grounding for Regan’s profession.

Location, befitting a novel about a realtor, is the strongest element in BACKYARD BONES. Jarvis is good with atmospheric details: “The trees on the Paisleys’ property were luxuriating in the fog. Green lichens and mosses on the tan oak trees were plumped up to the consistency of thick green fur. The feathered branches of the coastal redwoods bobbed up and down to individual rhythms as they condensed moisture from the mist, and when the accumulated water became too heavy, cathartically released it to the ground ... it felt different from the last time she’ been there. The apples...were starting to turn from green to shades of red or yellow as they got ever closer to ripening and reaching their full sweetness and color, but the trees themselves didn’t look very different...yet it felt unpleasantly cold and barren, even less alive and inviting than it had been in February, when all the apple trees were devoid of leaves.” (85)

BACKYARD BONES is a good summertime read. (B)

 

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Jess Lourey’s SEPTEMBER FAIR is one of her mystery series featuring Mira James, part-time librarian and part-time reporter for the Battle Lake Recall, in Minnesota. It came out in 2010 in e-book format.

Mira is covering the Minnesota State Fair in St. Paul through its twelve-day run, reporting on Battle Lakeans and their successes for a special fair edition of the newspaper. She’s joined in the Airstream on the fair campgrounds by her assistant librarian, the 84+-year-old Mrs. Berns, and by major Kennie Rogers, the would-be Southern belle born in Battle Lake. Mira’s in front of the booth in which Ashley Pederson of Battle Lake, winner of the Milkfed Mary, Queen of the Dairy contest, is being sculpted in butter when the lights go out; when they come back on, Ashley’s dead. Recall editor Ron Sims and Ashleys mother both want Mira to find out what and who killed Ashley. So she reluctantly gets involved.

****SPOILERS****SPOILERS*****

I do not find Mira James a sympathetic character. There’s a fine line between a character with emotional baggage that makes her believably human and one that makes me want to smack her and tell her to grow up. Many people have it rough growing up, have alcoholic parents, have the sense of everyone in their small town knowing all about their dysfunctional families, without turning into self-destructive neurotics. After setting Mira up this way, Lourey has Mrs. Berns deny Mira’s responsibility for her getting hurt, and miraculously, Mira’s cured. I don’t think emotional healing works that quickly or easily.

Part of what bothers me about Mira is on a common-sense level. First, she runs around telling everybody she encounters that she got some strange pictures of Ashley just before she died. She doesn’t immediately download the pictures to her computer and examine them; she doesn’t send copies to the newspaper. She doesn’t secure her camera in any way, and she’s surprised that the camera is stolen. She doesn’t report the theft to fairground security, the police, or her editor. She doesn’t replace it, and her editor doesn’t scream about not getting photos.

Mira visits the offices of Bovine Productivity Management, sponsor of the Milkfed Mary contest, and discovers evidence of major violations of research protocol (though her being left unaccompanied to find her way out and thus set up her discovery isn’t logical); when she returns to the fair, despite having been frightened almost into catatonia, she mentions it to no one, including the animal rights activist she’d met earlier. Mira finds one of the people she suspects tampering with her trailer and doesn’t check out what he was doing. She receives an anonymous note to look in his office for a report on what she’d discovered at BPM, so she takes the word of a receptionist at BPM that the suspect is out of town. Is anyone surprised that he isn’t, that he grabs her and the activist, and both nearly die?

At no point before the climax and denouement does Mira talk to the police about her suspicions, her theories, or her discoveries. Why not? She refers at least three separate times to her having found five bodies in five months in Battle Lake. This ain’t her first rodeo.

Easily the strongest element in SEPTEMBER FAIR is the sense of place created by Lourey’s lyrical descriptions: “I followed, whispering endearments o the fried candy bar as I nibbled at it. Nut Goodies have been a part of my life for over a decade, ever since I’d bought my first green-and-red-wrapped one on a whim at a gas station. Out of the wrapper, the candy is round, brown, bumpy, and looks about as appealing as a hairball. One bite, though, and you’ll be hooked. The first sensation...when biting in is a decadent chocolate, which is quickly countered by a satisfying peanut crunch, and finally, complete immersion in a blissful wave of maple candy center. I’d eaten them quick, like a naughty habit, and slow out of the freezer, but never deep fried before. The holy trinity was complete.”

This series receives generally good reviews, so I keep thinking there must be something I’m missing. I must have missed it again in SEPTEMBER FAIR. (D)

 

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A VISIBLE DARKNESS is the second book in Jonathon King’s mystery series featuring ex-Philadelphia cop Max Freeman who, after being shot in the line of duty and killing a twelve-year-old robber, quit the force and is now living on the edge of the Everglades. It is available in both print and e-format.

Some months after the case reported in THE BLUE EDGE OF MIDNIGHT, Billy Manchester, Max’s financial advisor, attorney, and friend, calls on Max for help. Ms. Mary Greenwood has consulted him about her mother’s life insurance; Ms. Philomena Jackson had paid on a sizable policy for decades but, at her death, Ms. Greenwood finds that her mother had sold it a couple of years before. In checking this out, Billy has discovered what he thinks is a cluster of elderly African-American women who’ve died in the past year, apparently of natural causes, all of whom had sold their life insurance policy to an investment group. Billy’s convinced the Tidewater Insurance Company to send Frank McCane to investigate, but he wants Max to look into the situation also. Is there a conspiracy and, if so, what is McCane’s role in it?

The plot is police procedural in organization, with King providing information as Max obtains it. Most of the story is told by Max as first person narrator, though occasional chapters are told from the viewpoint of Eddie Baines, a mentally-challenged giant who’s early on revealed as a serial killer. The fundamental question is not who killed the women, but who are the middlemen between Baines and the investors and how can the connection between them be proved. A secondary story line addresses Max’s cautiously-developing relationship with Sherry Richards, a sheriff’s deputy from THE BLUE EDGE OF MIDNIGHT. It’s not essential, but reading the series in order will enrich the experience. II particularly like that it is Richards who saves Max at the turning point of the plot.

Max Freeman continues to develop as realistically human as more of his back story is revealed through his memories and his musings. “Truth is an ephemeral thing. Perception holds a powerful sway. Ms. Greenwood was convinced that someone connected to her mother’s vicatical policy had a hand in her death. That was her truth. Billy, whose judgment I trusted, also believed it. McCane was never going to get his nose in this neighborhood to make any kind of assessment. I could walk away and not subject myself to the hassle. But that was the thing about truth and the possibility of it. I had a hard time leaving it alone.” (53) King is economical, introducing only characters necessary to carry the plot.

King is good at using setting to reveal personality. “[Billy Manchester’s] apartment was spacious, decorated in expensive natural wood and hung with collected art. His pride was the curving wall of glass that faced out over the Atlantic. The wide porch was always bathed in fresh salt air. The only sound was the low hum of wind nibbling at the concrete corners and the brush of breakers on the sand below. It was the exact opposite of everything Billy had grown up in.” (62)

Sense of place in King’s books is second to none. “From he road the view of the surf and the watery horizon were unobstructed . On the sidewalk I watched a young woman in a bikini walking south, her hips switching like a metronome . Two buzzcut boys walking a pit bull said something to her and she nonchalantly flipped them the finger. I slowed for a middle-aged man crossing from the hotel side, skating on roller blades, shirtless and tanned with a multicolored parrot parched on one shoulder. I passed a throbbing, low-rider Honda Accord that broadsided me with a bass line from a backseat full of speakers. Eight hours ago I was watching a wild bird hunting gar fish on a thousand-year-old river. Welcome to Florida.” (56)

A VISIBLE DARKNESS is a worthy second novel in what looks to be an outstanding series. (A)

 

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Julia Klassen's GIRL IN THE GATEHOUSE was a free or inexpensive Kindle e-book published in 2010. It is a mixture of details from Jane Austen's life, from PERSUASION, and from MANSFIELD PARK.

GIRL IN THE GATEHOUSE opens with the eviction of Mariah Aubrey from her home and family because she is a "ruined" woman, details not given. She is sent to the estate of her aunt Mrs. Francesca Prin-Hallsey, where Mariah will occupy the gatehouse with her companion Miss Dixon. When her aunt dies, step-son Hugh Prin-Hallsey demands rent that Mariah can pay only because her brother Henry Aubrey has sold her novel, A Winter in Bath, by Lady A; her publisher wants to see her second novel as soon as it is finished. In the meantime, Captain Matthew Bryant, recently paid-off and wealthy from his captures in the war with France, rents Windrush Court and prepares to enter society, determined to win the love of Isabella Forsythe, whose father before the war refused to allow their marriage. As time goes by, daily activities bring Matthew and Mariah together in mutual attraction.

****POSSIBLE SPOILERS****POSSIBLE SPOILERS****

So many things bother me about this book that I'm just noting some of them. No formal structure.

First, despite specific dates in 1813 and 1814, attitudes are modern. The only indication of Regency attitude is in the idea of a "ruined" woman being unfit for society. It's never clear (to 53%, where I'm giving up) that Mariah was physically compromised. Despite her coming abruptly to Windrush Court, living alone with only a companion, no one knows or apparently even speculates on Mariah's identity and story; compare this with the flow of gossip in any of Austen's novels. Coincidentally, Matthew's sister Lucy had survived a ruined reputation and is now happily married to a clergyman. Despite the title, Mariah Aubrey is 24 years old when the story opens, closer to old maid age than girlhood. A society woman's referring to herself as "Mrs. Catherine Stedman Parker" is modern usage.

Plot is a hodgepodge of elements that have yet to begin to come together. Mariah's aunt hid some "treasure" from her step-son Hugh Prin-Hallsey that he's desperate to find. Matthew Bryant is estranged from his autocratic, critical father who's obsessed with the death of son Peter. Miss Dixon is being courted by the gardener. Mariah has become involved with the affairs of Honora House, a nearby workhouse (modern in approach, not realistically Dickensian), where an elderly man is being held incognito and where a beautiful young girl is threatened by the advances of the matron's loutish son. Servant Jeremiah Martin tells the story of naval hero Captain Prince who supposedly died in action many years before. Mariah has her aunt's journals discussing in candid detail her late husband's family history. Matthew Bryant suffers from PTSD. Mariah's sister Julia and her brother Henry Aubrey risk disinheritance for remaining in contact with her. And we've not even reached Captain Bryant's house party yet. Even worse, how the story lines are going to play out has been telegraphed. Too much already.

If the characters were gripping, it might have been possible to suspend disbelief and accept all the plot lines, but they aren't. Mariah Aubrey is generic plucky heroine, Matthew Bryant standard brave hero. Despite our seeing the action through their eyes, neither is very realistic. I don't care enough about them to stick around, so I'm not assigning a grade.

Colin Firth has much to answer for. Since the 1995 adaptation of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, every Jane Austen fan fiction author seems required to include a wet-shirt episode in which the heroine suffers palpitations at the sight of the hero's manly chest and arms. We are not spared in GIRL IN THE GATEHOUSE. Klassen doesn't channel Jane Austen. She doesn't even channel Georgette Heyer.

 

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Peter Maughan’s THE CUCKOOS OF BATCH MAGNA was a free or inexpensive Kindle e-book published in 2013. It is a gentle, slice-of-life novel about the village of Batch Magna in the Welsh Marches on the border of Shropshire.

General Sir Humphrey Myles Pinkerton Strange, 8th baronet, the old squire, dies. His impoverished estate is entailed and passes to the grandson of the General’s younger brother. The new squire, Sir Humphrey Franklin T. Strange is American, his grandfather having immigrated to the United States in the 1920s. He and his advisers put plans for future development of the estate in hand immediately, including the eviction of tenants in four tied cottages and of the eclectic community of souls residing in the four boats moored on the River Cluny, the final remnants of the Cluny Steamship Line established by Sir Cosmo Strange, the General’s grandfather.

This community includes Owain and Annie Owen and their three youngest children; Owain had been head gamekeeper for Batch Hall and Annie its housekeeper, living in the boat instead of a tied cottage. Single mother Jasmine Roberts rents the second boat where she lives with her brood of wild kids; she’s a good musician and does psychic readings in Shrewsbury. The third is owned by Lieutenant-Commander James Cunningham, DSO, DSC and Bar, Royal Navy (ret), and his wife Priny. Phineas Cook, who writes crime thriller novels under the pseudonym Warren Chase, lives in the fourth with his white boxer Bill Sikes. They interact with a colorful assortment of village people. Incensed over eviction notices, the community even toys with the idea of murdering Sir Humphrey. Sir Humphrey comes incognito to Batch Magna where he is figuratively seduced by the beauty of the river and the spirit of the river people, (and almost literally by Lucy the barmaid at the Steamer Inn).

I love THE CUCKOOS OF BATCH MAGNA. The sense of place is outstanding. “...Phineas went past Batch Hall and up Roman Bank, a lane running between fields, the verges, in front of hedgebanks cut with slate and dry stone, tall now with summer, with cow parsley and hemlock and goutweed, and with a smell to them like wet iron in the damp and mist. And from somewhere behind him a cuckoo called sharply, an urchin sound, like a bit of street corner mischief, following him mockingly. And he heard it as he always did the taunting, near demented glee of a bird that knew something nobody else yet knew, but any day now would.”

Maughan is effective at using setting to establish character. “Phineas followed his friend [Commander Cunningham] up the steps to the wardroom, a room stuffed with books and bottles, and copies of ancient charts, like storybook charts, marked with brimming treasure chests and spouting whales, and warnings of monsters, and cherubs with winds on their breath. Here, the Commander pursued his theories of such things as time, and of moons that had shone down on this planet before, and monsters that still lived here, and the location of lost Atlantis.”

THE CUCKOOS OF BATCH MAGNA refers to the group living on the river, a vital community of genuine eccentrics who’ve come together to become family. “...[Phineas] looked with a sudden fierce rush of love at the others. What fun it had all been, what fun. Lord! The times we’ve had together. What a jolly life it must be, Mole said, living by the river. By it and with it and on it and in it, Ratty had replied. It’s brother and sister to me, and aunts and company, and food and drink. It’s my world, and I don’t want any other. Lord! The times we’ve had together.’No!’ he cried suddenly, as if in his sleep, and then glared at them. ‘No! Damn it, we will fight! We will fight and we will win! We’ll drive them from the river. From our river!’ “ It takes a writer of great skill to create not just individual characters but a dynamic group behaving believably.

For a time when a quiet immersion in another place is needed to soothe the soul, THE CUCKOOS OF BATCH MAGNA is ideal. (solid A)

 

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Eric Wright’s A SENSITIVE CASE is the seventh book in his mystery series featuring Charlie Salter of the Toronto Police Department’s Special Affairs Centre. It was published in 1991, a traditional police procedural mystery with large overlaps of personal and daily life that humanize the characters.

Charlie Salter, now Staff Inspector in charge of the SAC, receives the investigation of the murder of Linda Thomas, a masseuse therapist, from Homicide; Homicide is short-handed and, besides, the case involves a deputy minister and a major TV personality who require special handling. Salter’s working with a new sergeant, Mel Pickett, who’s finishing out his career in the Bail and Parole Unit. Their investigation leads them to various Thomas clients--she had been a genuine therapist, not a prostitute--all of whom have secrets to hide.

The murder plot is only part of the story. Salter is stressed by the idea that his wife Annie is having an affair, trying to decide how to deal with it and how to prevent her leaving. Pickett is conflicted about retirement, about his deceased wife’s relatives who expect to use him and his property, and about Imogen Colwood, the English girl who’s looking for her Canadian grandfather. This inclusion of daily and personal life of the detectives creates a sense of them as real people, whose jobs are only a part of their lives. The murder plot is fairly set up, and information is provided as the policemen learn it. Pickett’s relationship with Imogen Colwood has a pleasant surprise ending.

Wright is skilled in succinct summaries that illuminate character: “...five years after his wife’s death, he didn’t have enough time to do all he wanted. He was about to retire; the right moment would come when his work interfered with his private life. For Pickett, the right to retire, the knowledge that he could retire at any time (a week’s notice was enough) was like a bag of gold under the bed. That it was there and could be spent at any time gave him as much pleasure as spending it would have done. It increased the pleasure of working.” (12)

Sense of place in Wright’s novels is outstanding: “Wynchwood Park is a toy village carved out of the middle of Toronto, like a diplomatic enclave in a Far Eastern Capitol. It was created to give a few dozen citizens a sense of exclusivity, and it has survived all the attempts of left-wing politicians to integrate it with its surroundings. The road in is private and unwelcoming; but once inside, all is pastoral and benign. A sense of things rural is created by the many trees, by the gravel roads, and by the swan on the little pond. It is easy here to shut out the knowledge of the streetcar barns a hundred yards away on the other side of the trees, and the teeming multicultural world of working-class Toronto that surrounds the village. It is Dingley Dell in aspic, a Forest of Arden where a few fortunate citizens can go into exile after a hard day at the office.” (72)

The Charlie Salter series is strong, and A SENSITIVE CASE is another good link in the chain. (B+)

 

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MURDER WITH PEACOCKS is the first book in Donna Andrews’s long-running Meg Langslow series. The series is humorous with a strong sense of place and quirky individual characters.

Meg returns home to Yorktown, Virginia, for the summer of weddings. She’s maid of honor to three brides: Eileen Dunleavy, Meg’s best friend since school who shares a crafts-fair booth, engaged to Steven; Samantha Brewster, who’s marrying Meg’s brother Rob, whom Meg doesn’t really like; and her mother, Margaret Hollingsworth Langslow, who’s marrying Jake Wendell, newcomer to Yorktown whose first wife Emma died a year before. Meg’s overwhelmed with last minute “touches that will make the occasion,” like peacocks for the outdoor reception and trees draped with Spanish moss (which is not indigenous to Virginia), dresses chosen and not chosen, food that will withstand unrefrigerated heat, matchmaking friends and relatives, numerous attempts on her father’s life, and three murders.

The murder plot in MURDER WITH PEACOCKS is basically simple, with the most likely suspect guilty, but Andrews misdirects attention effectively. Meg’s trials and tribulations in dealing with weddings are at least as important as the murders, with humor paramount. Meg’s mother’s wedding comes off with a major and appropriate surprise ending

Meg Langlsow is the first person narrator, the sensible one in a huge extended family of eccentrics, her mother’s relatives, the Hollingsworths. She is an ironworker who’s moved away from Yorktown to escape them. She’s independent and strong-minded but continually gets drawn into her mother’s schemes. Margaret is a genuine steel magnolia: “...Mother and Samantha were talking to the current and former rectors of Grace Episcopal Church. The retired rector, the aptly named Reverend Pugh, was an old family friend. Mother had recently granted tentative approval to his successor after a mere eighteen-year probationary period. She now referred to him as ‘that nice young man’ rather than simply ‘that young man.’ At this rate, he had a very real chance of achieving ‘dear rector’ status by the time he retired.”

Southern ambiance is well done. “Fond as Mother was of her, Mrs. Fenniman was indisputably crazy enough to fit right into my family. In fact, she was a relative, more or less. After twenty-five years of intense genealogical discussion, she and Mother had finally found that the sister of one of our ancestors had apparently been married to the nephew of one of Mrs. Fenniman’s forebears, so they’d declared each other relatives. I could see Mrs. Fenniman taking matters into her own hands. During a visit to Richmond, she had once discouraged an armed mugger by stabbing him with her hatpin. And she was convinced that she had never been burgled because everyone in the county knew she slept with her great-grandfather’s Civil War saber at her bedside, ready to deal with any intruders. The fact that at least 99 percent of the townspeople had never been burgled either was, of course, irrelevant.”

MURDER WITH PEACOCKS is an ideal lazy summer afternoon read. (B+)

 

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Elizabeth Ashton’s MR. DARCY’S HOUSE PARTY was a free or inexpensive e-format novella. It’s set some years following the marriage of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy since their daughters are nearly teenagers.

The Darcy’s return to Pemberley from London for a quiet weekend house party with the Bingleys. It’s to be a pleasant family gathering of the two households, with Darcy and Bingley to enjoy the shooting. The best-laid plans oft go awry. First Lady Sarah Fitzwilliam, Darcy’s cousin, arrives unannounced, escaping from the pressure applied by her stepmother for Sarah to marry Lord William Winterbourne, who’s recently inherited title and estates that make him an acceptable match for an earl’s daughter. The same afternoon, Lord Winterbourne arrives, sent after Sarah by her stepmother. He proposes and, even though they acknowledge neither is in love with the other, they’ve known each other all their lives and care about each other, Sarah decides she’ll accept him.

When the Bingleys arrive at Pemberley, they have with them a house guest, Captain Octavious Hyde, who’s made his fortune in the Royal Navy and distinguished himself at Trafalgar. He and Lady Sarah had met and fallen in love five years before when, though of good family, Hyde had no money and few prospects; her brother Colonel Fitzwilliam and Lady Catherine de Bourgh separated them. Both quickly discover that their feelings are unchanged.

To add to the problem, Lady Catherine arrives at Pemberley with her god-daughter Miss Lucinda Hawes and Mr. Collins in tow. She’s come to insist that Lady Sarah immediately become engaged to Lord Winterbourne. Both Lord Winterbourne and Miss Hawes are astonished to see each other, since they’re in love even though Miss Hawes is engaged to Sir Philip Langton, a roue who’s 25 years older, in a well-publicized liaison with a young widow, Mrs. Paxton. He’s marrying Miss Hawes as part of a political alliance with her father. Can Lady Sarah realign the couples so that all are following their hearts?

The only very active character in MR. DARCY’S HOUSE PARTY is Lady Sarah Fitzwilliam, who’s definitely Lady Catherine’s niece in her willingness to arrange others’ lives. The men involved in the pairings are moved around like chessmen. The Darcys and the Bingleys are definitely minor characters, despite the title. There’s no suspense; it’s clear from the beginning “Jack shall have Jill; Naught shall go ill.” Flashback to Hyde and Lady Sarah’s meeting is not particularly well-handled, and shifts in point of view do not significantly improve characterization.

MR. DARCY’S HOUSE PARTY is pleasant enough, but nothing special. (C)