Customer Reviews

Jane and the Wandering Eye

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I enjoy these Jane Austen-as-sleuth novels. Author Stephanie Barron is a fine writer who emulates Austen's elegant prose style with success. This third installment of the series takes place in 1804 Bath, where Jane's family has moved, in part to accommodate father George's declining health, and Jane dislikes intensely living in a place of such "dissipation". A murder has occurred during a fancy dress party Jane attends, and she is drawn into the mystery by her old friend, Lord Harold Trowbridge.

I had some minor quibbles with the book -- Austen's renowned wit is missing, too many characters (in costumes, no less!) and relationships make the plot confusing -- but in general I enjoyed this book very much, and appreciate the opportunity to spend time with our beloved Jane as the author deftly weaves historical and biographical facts into her story.

Personally I enjoy the footnotes, which are infrequent, informative and not at all intrusive.

Having read the first two books in this series and enjoyed them both I thought I would just pick this book up and begin a delightful reading experience. Sadly, that did not turn out to be the case. Even though a three star rating is not actually considered bad, it does say that I did not find the pleasure in reading this one which was so evident for me in the previous two.

Right away I began to have trouble. Maybe it was a lack of concentration on my part, maybe not. I had to go back and read the first chapter a second time in order to get all the many characters placed in my head. Even so I still lost track of one of them. I didn't think that Stephanie Barron did a very good job of clearly defining who was who for the characters. This was magnified by the fact that they were all in fancy dress, wearing masks, and Jane didn't know any of them, even if they had not been in costume. Lord Harold Trowbridge had gotten in touch with Jane (he knew her from another one of her mystery adventures) and asked her to keep an eye on his niece, Lady Desdemona. Lady Desdemona has been made an offer of marriage by the Earl of Swithin. She turns him down flat and leaves London to stay with her grandmother in Bath. Lord Harold wants Jane to keep an eye on Mona to make sure she doesn't do anything foolish, such as form an unacceptable alliance, just to prove to Swithin that she is serious about not marrying him. How was Jane Austen, a spinster on the fringes of high society, in very perilous financial circumstances, supposed to accomplish this task? That weakness in the plot was such a glaring problem that I began to read with a frown on my face and it didn't leave my countenance very often. The murder which happened at the fancy-dress ball was what ultimately threw the characters together but under normal circumstances I don't think Jane would have been very likely to become a confidant for Lady Desdemona. I needed something more substantial to tie these two women together in the first place.

I found that the sentence structure and word usage was not always well done. I had to fight to comprehend some of the sentences and read them over and finally arrived at the meaning. I do not read these books because I am a fan of the writings of Jane Austen. I read these books, first and foremost, because I love a good mystery. Having them "told and solved" by Jane Austen is just a plus for me. This mystery was not a very good mystery. I went back and read the last half of chapter 16 and the first half of chapter 17 over again to make sure I understood who, what, when and why. That is not a ringing endorsement. I pay close attention when I read a mystery because I like to solve it myself. Yet in this case I was confused and not very happy about it when all was revealed. And I will tell you right now, I did not like what Ms Barron did with one of the real life friends of Jane Austen. There was no reason that I can see for her to have cast any doubts on the death of that person. No reason whatsoever!

I'm sorry to say that any friend who asks my opinion of this book, and indeed this entire series, will likely get an earfull. I will not sugar-coat the entire series just because I liked the first book so very much and continued to enjoy the second in the series. This one was not up to standard for me and I will have to relay that information. It almost seemed that Ms Barron was using so much of her attention in getting the historical setting and the Austen voice correct that she forgot the mystery. Well, the historical setting is fine by me. I don't know enough to be critical. The Austen voice became quite a bit weaker in this third book, at least for me. The mystery? That came off almost like an afterthought which she continued to re-write and solve as she went along.

'Jane and the Wandering Eye' is the third novel in Stephanie Barron's Jane Austen as detective series; and she merely improves each time upon an ingenious and highly likely concept, as our favorite author plays sleuth to high-profile murders and crimes. Barron has realistically recreated Austen's time period, playing the editor to Jane's "found" diaries that record these events, and peppering her narrative with footnotes that inform the reader about Austen's day.

With the third book of the series, Barron has improved upon her style. At times it almost seems a bit of a stretch to capture the language used in Austen's day, but Barron is comfortable in Jane's mindset. She does the author justice in thought and deed - one can very easily imagine Jane adventuring to discover the twists and turns of the mysteries that fill Barron's pages. And if there is a slight resemblance to some of Austen's published novels, well, we know when the idea/observation struck her.

The third book introduces us to a murder mystery, filled with numerous twists and turns. Once again we find Jane in the companionship of Lord Harold Trowbridge, as they try to solve a mystery that was committed at his mother's house and that throws suspicion on his family, as well as on various suitors who would claim his niece's hand in marriage. Together, Lord Harold and Jane uncover the murderer while the law remains impotent to do so. I very much look forward to whatever mischief she may set her sights upon in book four.

The book opens on a masquerade in honor of an acting company, with our fictional Jane Austen in the guise of a Shepardess, and the scene ends with a murdered Harlequin, stabbed during a dramatic soliloquy from Macbeth (the "cursed play"). Harlequin turns out to be Richard Portal, manager of the troupe. A young man is standing over the body, knife in hand, but all is not as it seems, as is usual in mystery books.

It turns out this young man is a relative of Lord Harold, Jane's old nemesis-turned-ally from the first of the Jane Mysteries. Lord Harold and Miss Austen comb the worlds of acting, staging a scene of their own in order to rifle Mr. Portal's papers, and of artistry, as it turns out that the "Wandering Eye" of the title, a mysterious, expensively-made eye portrait had been found on the corpse. As is usual in Ms. Barron's Jane mysteries, one learns much of the cultural history of the Regency period -- the tumultuous politics of the time, the fashions in dress and affectation (Jane runs into some of the dandies of the day), and the ways in which people's reputations her broadcast (imagine, they had gossip columns -- one can't blame current media for starting the practice of nosing into people's private lives!)

I found the solution to the mystery a little disappointing, but the characters much more interesting than in the two previous books. Jane and her sister Cassandra's relationship strains with their increasing age and obvious spinsterhood, Jane reacts to the smearing of her own good name, and Jane loses a very close friend. Ms. Barron has done an excellent job of weaving Jane Austen's real biography (and actual words - I noted several phrases from Austen's own novels and letters inserted liberally into the text) into dramatic action. I think Jane herself would have found these books amusing; we now think of Austen as having a retired, uneventful life, and these books paint a portrait very different. The queen of irony would have smirked.

I really enjoyed the third book in the Jane Austen series of mysteries, even more than the first two (Jane and Secret of Scargrave Manor, Jane and the Man of the Cloth) because I think that the author is really beginning to show promise in her crafting of the mystery plot and the characters.

In this mystery Jane is introduced into theatrical company, and if you enjoy late 18th and early 19th century British theater I think you will enjoy being immersed in those circles, as well. In addition, the main clue of the mystery is one of the "eye portraits" fashionable in the late 18th century. When an eye portrait is found on the dead body at the center of the mystery, Jane turns her attention into discovering whose "wandering eye" this is.

If you enjoy Jane Austen and are fully cognizant that Stephanie Barron is not and can never be Jane Austen, you should give this series of mysteries a try. They are very entertaining, extremely well-written for a historical mystery (except the liberal sprinkling of footnotes which I still find annoying), and provide an interesting first-person narrative (because the mystery consists of Jane's journal entries).

This is the third of a series of not-at-all-unpleasant mysteries from Stephanie Barron, written with the conceipt that they are actually long-lost journals from the pen of Jane Austen, found in a distant American relative's belongings, and detailing Jane's family, friends, society and the mysterious events in which she keeps finding herself embroiled...In this volume, a man is murdered during a masquerade party during a Christmastide in fashionable Bath, and whispers a name as he expires--but how many women happened to be named "Maria" during Austen's time?

These novels are like brief vacations to a vanished never-land of Regency England...The period detailing seems authentic; the language is Austen-like, as far as that can go, and there are pseudo-scholarly footnotes to explain unfamiliar terms and concepts. Well worth reading!

They're not REALLY written by Jane Austen. If you want to read a book by Jane Austen, buy "Emma" or "Persuasion." If you want to read one written by an Austen scholar and admirer, try these. They're really interesting and quite charming. I think it's brilliant that Barron has invested her creativity in this tribute to her favorite writer. Maybe some Austenites are just too die-hard to appreciate the concept. Personally, I find these novels well designed and very entertaining. Wish I could write as well as this author does.

There is much worthy of praise in Ms. Barron's Jane Austen series. The very concept of Austen as a sleuth is fun, and even fitting -- after all, PD James has argued persuasively that "Emma" has all the elements of a good mystery novel. The footnotes in the Austen mysteries give significant insight into the people, places, and lifestyles of Regency England, even if the "feel" of the books sometimes tends to the Edwardian. The sweep and pace of the first two books provided a welcome diversion from the gloomy skies during a recent vacation in Florida.

But after "Wandering Eye", I'm giving up. Barron simply does not have the skill to pull off the complicated plots she attempts. She feels obligated to spin everything on its head in the final pages, and "Wandering Eye" left MY eyes glazed over as I tried to sort out which of the suspects had what relationship with which young lady, including one mentioned only in passing and who is dead before the book even begins. Complicated is fine, confusing is not, and this book tends toward the latter. Three down, more to go, but I'm not gonna bother.

I liked this addition to this series of books very much. This is probably the most "social" of these books--Jane is very much part of the larger society of Bath (which constrains and enervates her.) The development of Jane's relationship with Sir Harold and his family is central to this novel, and for really the only time in this series there are some visible stresses between Jane's independence and her family's concern for how things look.

Barron turns in another fine mystery with a good imitation of the Austen style and voice. I especially enjoyed this installment because I had recently seen a discussion of "lover's eyes" on Antiques Roadshow and knew a fair amount about them. Barron's use of the theatre set in this book is also quite entertaining. I do think that some of the elements of Barron's mystery writing could be sharper and more cunningly crafted, but the fine characters and the excellent handling of nineteenth-century English culture keep the novel interesting from start to finish. Of course, the return of Lord Harold Trowbridge is the highlight of the book!