Liz Bennet’s mother wants to marry her and her four sisters off, but Liz has something more interesting in mind for her life than men — most of whom, her father aside, she has little use for. She wants to be a barrister, and has in fact been helping at her father’s firm unofficially for some time now. She knows the law as well as any man, and sees in a new case a chance to prove her merit to her father. A wealthy fellow named Bingley has been accused of murdering his useless drunk of a brother-in-law, and netting his business would not only be good for the firm, but establish Liz’s credentials. Too bad some fellow named Darcy has already beaten her to the punch. Fortunately, Bingley is still interested in any evidence Liz’s detective work might turn up, so she’s hired — and soon in peril from the actual killer. If any of these names sound familiar, they should: this is a strange kind of Pride and Prejudice fanfiction. Not a retelling, mind — that would entail the original story being followed, but with some new element like zombies or sea monsters thrown in. Instead, this is a new story with characters who have some superficial resemblance to the originals, and with some deliberate allusions to the original story like the mention of Wickham kidnapping Lydia. The central story is Liz’s investigation of the murder, which soon gets her and several other characters into trouble — lethal trouble. At first, she and Darcy are at odds, but as the book develops they become collaborators. The dramatic music swelling and empassioned kissing of the original romance aren’t here, though — in fact, if you’re looking for romance it’s practically nonexistant. Although the story itself proved interesting, it took a bit to get into given that our main character is exceeding anachronistic, someone who acts like a woman of the mid-20th century instead of a Regency personality whose father is a competent but retiring barrister with no ambitions or pretensions. When Alice Roosevelt played detective in Alice and the Assassin, it was plausible because of the temporal setting and the sheer fact that it was Alice Roosevelt, who would have made herself a celebrity by controversy even if her father hadn’t been Teddy Roosevelt. The author herself acknowledges taking a lot of liberties, and despite my annoyance at the fact that Liz sounds more like Gloria Steinem than an Austen character, the mystery itself proved both interesting, surprising, and fun. I can see continuing in this series, but only by couching it as ‘respectable fanfiction’.

Highlights:

This was the dull thing about society—one was always saying what they
didn’t mean, and if they did say what they meant, it was considered rude.

“This is really quite the twist,” she said. “Like something out of a novel, but even more exciting. It’s very clever, isn’t it?”

If Darcy really thought that she was going to stay put while he investigated danger . . .
“Go,” Georgiana whispered. “I’ll pretend I tried to stop you.”
“I rather like you,” Lizzie said, and she went after Darcy.

“Darcy!” she screamed into the dark water. “If you drown, I will be very angry with you!”

Related:
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Seth Grahame-Smith
Also, Amazon is loaded with this kind of stuff. There’s one where Georgiana is in a marching band and Darcy goes around in a helicopter.

Coming up:
Er, something more typical for RF, a history of the Creek Wars in Alabama. Expect to finish it over the weekend.

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