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A review by museoffire
The Suspicion at Sanditon by Carrie Bebris
4.0
I do so love these books. Since the first novel in this warm, snuggly, and just a tad eerie series Pride and Prescience sent the newly married Mr. and Mrs. Darcy of Pride and Prejudice fame off on their first foray into criminal detection I have devoured every delicate morsel of the delightful Ms. Bebris' work.
This time around the Darcy's are off to Sanditon (the setting for one of Ms. Austen's unfinished works) a seaside village that some residents are hoping to turn into a popylar tourist destination. Elizabeth is charged with looking after the (marriageable) daughter of a family friend visiting there and Darcy is investigating whether the town might make a good investment for his cousin Col. Fitzwilliam. Of course it isn't long before they're invited to dine with the dowager Lady Denham and her various potential heirs and acquaintances. But, before dinner can be served Lady Denham vanishes and the assembled guests are trapped for the night by a thunderstorm (I mean c'mon the ladies can't be expected to go out in the rain, their dresses might get wet. Someone could catch a cold!). As the search commences one by one other members of the party begin to disappear!
Once again Ms. Bebris' stellar handling of both period and style are in evidence as is her wonderful realization of Darcy and Elizabeth's characters. They're charming and deeply in love without being cloying and both perfectly maintain the original lively fire and stoic sense of responsibility, respectively, that made them the classic hero and heroine of regency romance. The supporting cast are equally marvelous; we are introduced to a duplicitous (or is he) older gentleman with a grudge against Lady Denham, a brother and sister determined to get their share of Lady Denham's sizable estate, and the various Parker siblings, a family who are desperate for Sanditon to be a success.
Ms. Bebris just nails everything, down to even the smallest social rules. Which, alas, is where this particular story falls just a tad flat for me.
It took an incredibly and I mean incredibly long time for the actual mystery to take hold. Admittedly Mr. and Mrs. Darcy are not a typical detective duo who can simply sweep in and start investigating and making demands but the narrative gets really bogged down in determining who should be leading various search parties and who's entitled to look into which rooms based on various social restrictions, who has the more senior title etc. One guy is a knight so he can do certain things versus another character who doesn't have a title. It gets a bit tedious. A great deal is impeded by propriety and thus the tension becomes almost non-existent since one can't help feeling that the various missing characters can't be in any real danger since everyone seems to care more about who escorts which lady down a dark hallway.
Its a shame because the real mystery is a really beautiful and tragic one that doesn't really come to the fore until the very last pages of the book. The reasoning behind Lady Denham's disappearance and the subsequent vanishing of several other characters is honestly too slapsticky and downright silly against the far more sobering subplot that barely gets any attention.
That said I did greatly enjoy this and my hat remains permanently doffed to Ms. Bebris who I sincerely hope will find some way to continue her stories now that she's sent the Darcy's through all of Ms. Austen's finished works. Surely there's a heretofore unknown rough draft somewhere she could adapt?
This time around the Darcy's are off to Sanditon (the setting for one of Ms. Austen's unfinished works) a seaside village that some residents are hoping to turn into a popylar tourist destination. Elizabeth is charged with looking after the (marriageable) daughter of a family friend visiting there and Darcy is investigating whether the town might make a good investment for his cousin Col. Fitzwilliam. Of course it isn't long before they're invited to dine with the dowager Lady Denham and her various potential heirs and acquaintances. But, before dinner can be served Lady Denham vanishes and the assembled guests are trapped for the night by a thunderstorm (I mean c'mon the ladies can't be expected to go out in the rain, their dresses might get wet. Someone could catch a cold!). As the search commences one by one other members of the party begin to disappear!
Once again Ms. Bebris' stellar handling of both period and style are in evidence as is her wonderful realization of Darcy and Elizabeth's characters. They're charming and deeply in love without being cloying and both perfectly maintain the original lively fire and stoic sense of responsibility, respectively, that made them the classic hero and heroine of regency romance. The supporting cast are equally marvelous; we are introduced to a duplicitous (or is he) older gentleman with a grudge against Lady Denham, a brother and sister determined to get their share of Lady Denham's sizable estate, and the various Parker siblings, a family who are desperate for Sanditon to be a success.
Ms. Bebris just nails everything, down to even the smallest social rules. Which, alas, is where this particular story falls just a tad flat for me.
It took an incredibly and I mean incredibly long time for the actual mystery to take hold. Admittedly Mr. and Mrs. Darcy are not a typical detective duo who can simply sweep in and start investigating and making demands but the narrative gets really bogged down in determining who should be leading various search parties and who's entitled to look into which rooms based on various social restrictions, who has the more senior title etc. One guy is a knight so he can do certain things versus another character who doesn't have a title. It gets a bit tedious. A great deal is impeded by propriety and thus the tension becomes almost non-existent since one can't help feeling that the various missing characters can't be in any real danger since everyone seems to care more about who escorts which lady down a dark hallway.
Its a shame because the real mystery is a really beautiful and tragic one that doesn't really come to the fore until the very last pages of the book. The reasoning behind Lady Denham's disappearance and the subsequent vanishing of several other characters is honestly too slapsticky and downright silly against the far more sobering subplot that barely gets any attention.
That said I did greatly enjoy this and my hat remains permanently doffed to Ms. Bebris who I sincerely hope will find some way to continue her stories now that she's sent the Darcy's through all of Ms. Austen's finished works. Surely there's a heretofore unknown rough draft somewhere she could adapt?