[.ca] Jane and the Stillroom Maid: Being the Fifth Jane Austen ... (ISBN 0553578375)

Regency mystery, with fewer historical distractions:
Barron's fictional Jane continues her surprisingly dangerous career by stumbling upon a particularly grisly corpse -- a young man, she thinks, shot in the head and eviscerated. As it comes out that the deceased was a stillroom maid, in charge of remedies and preserves, and a vicious rumor implicating the Freemasons spreads throughout the village, Jane once again becomes enmeshed with a murder investigation. There are plenty of false leads to follow, plenty of scandals to uncover, and all in the company of Lord Harold Trowbridge, who is in Derbyshire to pay a visit of morning for the Duchess of Devonshire. Of the Jane Austen Mystery series so far, this is the one most distilled - fewer side issues for Jane to consider, fewer forays into the politics and the culture of the day. There is, of course, the aristocratic name-dropping; we are treated to the leading people of the Whig movement in Parliament. Also, there is a small mention of Freemasonry, but it passes quickly. The chapters are interspersed with recipes for folk remedies, in sure opposition to the "more modern" apothecary and doctor, who prefer their bleeding cures to tinctures and poultices (Warning: do not try these remedies at home. Stick to our "modern" remedies of St. John's Wort and saw palmetto). However, there are far fewer footnotes in this book than the previous novels and far fewer reveries on Jane's part. Barron seems to have decided to make this a murder mystery, with few distracting elements. Once again, an enjoyable read, like the rest of the series, but no tedious bits as some of the previous novels suffered from.

Predictable:
Altogether too predictable, making it a huge yawn. An excellent idea going to waste under this author.

Jane Austen lives!:
I have enjoyed all of the Jane Austen and...mystery books. The novels are witty, exciting, and true to Jane Austen. There is sly humor and a depth of character (main characters) that is truly engaging. This book sent me back to Pride and Prejudice with a new perspective, and was a terrific mystery in its own right.

A delightful concoction --:
In the great houses of England, many of which were somewhat isolated and therefore at least somewhat self-contained, the Stillroom maid was a sort of combination lay-apothecary and general medical practitioner. According to the medical rules of the time, that is. Her strength was in the knowledge and use of herbs and other assorted items that could be blended together to cure--or at least treat--nearly every ailment known to man. If the medicaments as put forth at the beginning of each chapter of this book are as factual as stated by the author, I confess to surprise that not more of the Stillroom maids were cruelly murdered. Many of them were accused--rightly or wrongly--of witchcraft. Of course, Tess Arnold was a bit more than just Stillroom maid to the household in which she was employed. Just how much more, became the problem facing Jane Austen in this, her fifth crime to solve. Jane, after all, had come across the mutilated body of the young person, dressed in gentleman's evening clothes, and with a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. Imagine the surprise of everyone--including Jane--when the local coroner identified the corpse as not a young man, but--the Stillroom maid from Penfolds Hall. Jane, her sister Cassandra and their mother, in the company of Edwin Cooper, the nephew of Mrs. Austen, and a vicar (who was clearly the model for Mr. Collins) visit Derbyshire in company with George Hemming, a gentleman friend of Edwin. The two gentlemen and Jane had gone trout fishing in the dales, providing the opportunity for Jane to have a little commune with nature, but resulting instead in the horrid discovery of the body. Jane's 'Gentleman Rogue' Lord Harold has been invited to nearby Chatsworth (and model for Pemberly) the home of the Duke of Devonshire, some few months after the death of the first Duchess, Georgiana. The family has been devastated by the death of their leader, and are now trying to find their way again, when the surrounding area becomes inflamed by the death of Tess. Of course, it is the powerful Whigs who come under the most suspicion, as many of them are also members of the FreeMasons, an organization looked upon with much skepticism by the townsfolk. There are twists aplenty before Jane puts all the pieces together and provides a solution, but not until after another death. It was The Stillroom Book, as kept by Tess Arnold that finally provided the necessary information for the Justice to secure his prisoner. In the end, however, Jane and Lord Harold must once again say good-bye, and we are left to hope they will meet again, thus providing us with further adventures.

A Darker Tone Than the Earlier Books:
I continue to be very impressed with this series of mysteries. This one took me a little bit more time to get into, perhaps more because of busyness in my own life than actually having trouble getting into the story, but, as in the past with these books, I ended up being very satisfied. There is a slightly larger cast of supporting characters here than in the past books, and this one is a little less overtly political (not so much worry about Napoleonic France here) but there are certainly class and social issues. Jane is more socially anxious than in the earlier books, as she heads off to the opulant home of her Whig friends. Some of this is a class and political consciousness, and some of this comes from the growing sense that she is older, without money, and without some of the prospects for happiness that she has to admit she yearns for. This is stronger here than in any of th earlier books. Jane's relationship with Sir Harold Trowbridge brings her both great joy and terrible pain, as she confronts the abyss between their social positions and knows that she can never home to cross the divide between them, no matter how beautifully their minds work together and they appreciate each other. The actual plot here is as clear and direct as the plot of the ealier books as well--solving the mystery is not the ultimate satisfaction here. It is coming to that solution with the very satisfying characters.