Finally an ACTUAL murder, most foul! And the decedent will not be missed!
You know what this one really reminded me of? If Agatha Christie were writing Pride and Prejudice episodes, no really, it's set in a small village in northern England- not far from Gretna Green and there are suspects aplenty!

I won't give it away, but it did have me guessing almost till the end. ;] ( )

Fun enough, although I flatly refuse to believe Lizzy would start throwing around terms like "crim con" no matter how many papers the Darcy household took in. The plot took an overly wonky and melodramatic turn at about the 3/4 mark, but for the author to pull off this fusion of characters from P&P and Northanger Abbey without enraging me is really quite a feat. ( )

This book was entertaining and kept my mind off of things for a while, so I have to give it some credit. Obviously it was nothing like an authentic book by Jane Austen. To me, it is silly to even expect such a thing. So I am judging it as a mystery based on Jane Austen, against other mysteries based on Jane Austen. On that score it does fairly well. There are anachronisms in speech as usual and one has to suspend disbelief somewhat more than in other imitation-Austen books because of the mystery. Some of the characters were done better than others. I found Henry Crawford more believable than Elizabeth, for instance. It's pretty easy to figure out part of the solution to the mystery but I confess to being surprised by the other part. I liked that the author gave Mr. Rushworth a happy ending as I have always felt sorry for him. I thought it interesting that the author chose not to let Fanny Price step into the picture at all, but I think that is probably for the best. Fanny is often misunderstood by readers as it is and she cannot be an easy character to depict in a setting full of criminal activity! It is almost impossible to imagine. Thank goodness the author did not attempt it. ( )

Mr. and Mrs. Darcy (of Pride and Prejudice fame) solve difficulties in this book that incorporates the characters of Austen's Mansfield Park. ( )

Ms Bebris provides for a fun little tale in her mystery sequels to Pride and Prejudice trying to incorporate as many of the characters from the other parts of the canon as she is able. As with most good mysteries, we have a body (at least one of course) and with a conundrum as to how such a body came to be dead.

Surrounding this predicament though is perhaps a change of character from those of the canon that Austen left us that gets further more difficult to reconcile into the world that Ms Bebris is trying to create. For instance, Colonel Fitzwilliam's father, and once he dies, his elder brother, is the Earl of M----K. Not the name that we find here. And then as we now journey to the environs of the Bertrams, relatively little is made from our knowledge of the Bertrams where we seem to focus nearly extensively on Henry Crawford, the infamous Rake, in this tale.

As we go about Merry Olde Austen England, I would expect that we would see more of each books main characters, but here Fanny Price does not appear at all in the book, though we do see Edmund once or twice. We also see a great deal of Lady Catherine as we did in the previous tale, and I begin to discern that it is Ms Bebris goal to make these the tales of the Darcy's and Lady Catherine more than any other character.

So it goes, and as it does, these are more tales of our canonical characters rather than scene and setting, with a light murder mystery grafted upon it. Perhaps with such twists and tribulations that you may feel there is a little too much protestations, yet all for our heroes, as any Austen tale will, works itself out in the end and we are faced with a concussion that is palatable. So far removed are we from the true Austen storyline that romance is far afield as our viewpoints are that of Darcy and Elizabeth and as we know in these sequels, are wed and happy. That there are others still to be wed, and that dance around this tale, we do not dwell into those lives as we could even as both Darcy and Elizabeth could guide the lovers with their wealth of experience in the matters of romance. That perhaps could have added to the tale giving us an even greater affinity to the true theme of the canon tales.

While the couple of the story do have a path that is not straight but littered with hazards, it is not strewn with the same trouble that any of the couples we have known in Austen's work encountered, nor do we glimpse what those characters think or feel along the way overmuch. So the pleasure here is yet another, different glimpse of an interpretation of how Austen might have added to her own tales. If thinking that the Darcys would find themselves involved in yet another murder, then this is a good read to enjoy. ( )