Where War Threatens

Jane and the Genius of the Place by Stephanie Barron
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It's been years since I first read this, but I was right the first time--5 stars.

It's my favorite of the first four books, though I enjoy all of them. I guess it feels like she's hitting her stride.

Jane is staying with her rich brother and his family in Kent, near enough the coast that the very likely invasion from France is affecting their plans, making them prepare to evacuate. At the same time, they are enjoying summer fun, attending the races in Canterbury.

Of course, that's where a murder takes place, as this is a murder mystery, and Jane's brother, being the local magistrate, has to take charge of the investigation. No way Jane's not getting involved. The murdered woman is the source of a lot of local scandal, being French and beautiful and capable of making lots of married men devoted to her, and as she's connected to a wealthy family in Paris there is the additional complication of international affairs in the plot.

It's a good story. Good mystery and all. But that's not the thing I like most.

It's impossible not to love the main character. I never read mysteries before this series, and I'm a bit ambivalent still about the genre in general, but I just want to keep reading about this version of Jane Austen, watching her being smarter than everyone else. (I would really like to fix her up with a deserving guy, because she absolutely deserves her happily ever after, and there is a nice bit of romance simmering in the books that really works, IMO. But marriage and family is ultimately not to be, as we all know, because history tells us what actually happens. Reality is an asshole.) Jane remains believable; she's not a superhero or even Sherlock. But she is clever, and sarcastic, and funny, and a capable detective, and really fun to watch. For me, she's the draw, more than the intellectual puzzle of the mystery. That adds to it, sure. And it's well written. But I'd read it if she was solving crossword puzzles, as long as she was clever and surprising and got to tell off some obnoxious character in that Regency way.

Anyway, I love these books. I'm glad to be back in the middle of the series, with lots of books still to read back through, tricking myself into thinking there is no end to them, just like a little kid on summer vacation in July pretending the first day of school will never come.....

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