Jane and the Genius of the Place: Being the Fourth Jane Austen Mystery (Being A Jane Austen Mystery)

There are more than a few literary tragedies -- the burning of the Library at Alexandria and Coleridge's ill-timed caller come to mind -- and among them one must list Cassandra Austen's burning of the majority of her sister Jane's letters. Despite the loss of this treasure trove, Stephanie Barron manages to capture the style and spirit of Miss Jane's lovely prose, and she does so within the framework of cozy murder mysteries. The series is highly entertaining, and this fourth installment is no exception. Though the mystery is fairly transparent (It's easy to figure out what happened, though it takes a while to figure out whodunit), the language is elegant and witty and we learn a lot about Britain's Great Terror, landscaping, horses and even Jane Austen and her family. My next visit to England will definitely include a visit to Godmersham! Though I would appreciate an author's note detailing the fictional status of the characters, I am puzzled by the complaints about learning. When knowledge is gained so painlessly, why would one choose mindless entertainment?This story takes place near Jane's brother Edward's estate, Godmersham, in Kent, at the time if the Canterbury Races. At first I was disappointed that some of the series' most endearing characters were missing -- Eliza and Sir Harold Trowbridge are only mentioned or appear briefly. I was not as disappointed to have Jane's mother and sister absent, as Cassandra is basically a wet blanket in this series and Mother is very annoying. But I was pleasantly surprised to become better acquainted not only with Jane's brothers Neddie and Henry, but also Neddie's wife Lizzy and daughter Fanny. These characters are a lot of fun, and scenes of the family gathering to try and reason out matters are particularly engaging. I agree with the reviewer who said that Julian Sothey's devotion to Anne Sharpe did not seem justified, but otherwise thought that the characters here were quite engaging and beautifully drawn. In addition to being historically accurate, Ms. Barron takes pains to incorporate real events from Jane Austen's experience into the story, and if you also have a copy of Jane Austen's Letters, you will be delighted to read those from the same time period and find the correspondence (so to speak) between events real and fictional.One trusts Miss Jane would approve.

I am a fan of these clever and richly detailed stories by Ms. Barron. She crafts a vividly realized period setting, casts it with lively characters and then tosses in a good murder or two for these creatures to solve. To my mind, relaxing mystery reading doesn't get much better than that!Keeping in mind the above, I must say that I found "Jane and the Genius of the Place" somewhat less than a full meal in the mystery column than the previous three. I cannot, of course, speak for the other reviewers here but I found that I had solved the "surprise" twists of the story almost upon finding their first mentions in the book. It made me wish Jane (for all her muched lauded cleverness) would hurry along and catch up! I enjoyed all of the new characters thoroughly especially Julian Sothey who was sadly, I thought, underused in the storyline. I would have liked to met him earlier in the plot! If nothing else to understand his devotion to Anne Sharpe who seemed quite underdeveloped as a plot device. Just why would this brilliant and sophisticated man pine for this particular girl? What was it about Anne Sharpe that would make him seek her out when he might have any selection of brighter, more entertaining women to chose from? In the story Anne seems a bit lacklustre to truly engage the imagination of so artistic and discerning a gentleman. I believe it is this dynamic that causes the story's ending to be less than satisfying. There just isn't enough here to hang an ending on.But nonetheless, Ms.Barron is a gifted and skillful writer who has produced a series of awfully good mystery stories. I know I will continue to read them as long as she is kind enough to produce them! Perhaps she will even bring Julian Sothey back in another "Jane" tale and give him a finer ending!

I'm surprised by the number of readers of this series (not so much for this book as the earlier ones) who fault Barron for not being Austen. None of us are Copernicus either, but we may still revolve around the sun. To those critics I am inspired to paraphrase the little Comtesse to Cassandra: "La, you are such a stick!" Barron's series is imaginative in its premise, and engaging in its execution. I love every book and look forward to the next, regretting only that a full-fledged romance between Jane and Lord Harold is quite literally impossible.

I first read Stephanie Barron's Austen mysteries simply for the pleasure of the narrative, then I began to notice how clever the books were. First she manages to capture the tone of the Regency era very well. (If you question this check out the excellent social history by Venetia Murray, Elegant Madness-- if you want something interesting to contemplate Murray states that 1 pound in that period is equal to 50 pounds now. That means in Pride and Prejudice Mr. D'Arcy's income of 10,000 pounds a year equals 500,000 pounds a year now. Second, her Jane Austen sounds genuine. I had recently reread Austen's works and was surprised by how easily I could imagine Barron's Jane Austen writing those books. Third, Barron is clever enough to suggest but not slavishly copy, statements made in Austen's novels, as though they were made in real life and Austen saved them to use in her fiction. Also the names and natures of Barron's secondary characters also suggest the names and characteristics of characters from Austen's works, again as though Jane had stored them up for future use. Lastly, the thing that made me smile the most was the "editor's" judgement that Susan, as an epistilatory novel, was old fashioned even when it was written-- while Barron is in essense writing a very old fashioned type of tale!

This fourth mystery featuring Jane Austen is Barron's best. The reader's interest was held throughout in a story that was anything but predictable. The characters were interesting and likable, and the plot was intriguing. The descriptions were so vivid, and the conversations so realistic, I felt as if I were in the same room with the characters. This was a book that was hard to put down.