Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House

Rating:
Summary: Better and Better She Gets...
Review: ... but less and less like Jane Austen. So? Who cares? Well, the Austen purists do, but they probably quit reading the series long ago. Yep, Jane is behaving downright unnaturally for a true Regency spinster--isn't it fun? The endless reflection and ratiocination of the earlier books is replaced with more action in the recent books, and I for one consider the change an improvement. This is my favorite book so far; when I read Netley, that will undoubtedly become my new favorite. Read Jane Austen if you want to read Jane Austen; read this series if you enjoy good mysteries with interesting characters and well-researched local/historical color.

Rating:
Summary: Slightly below "Jane's" usually excellent standard
Review: Barron's series featuring Jane Austen as sleuth is one of the most delectable of the famous-person-as-detective genre.

Barron's Jane is penetrating, quick, and energetically determined to see justice prevail - and she always does just in time to avert even greater evils. Our new Jane also has the internal qualities we would expect: introspection, sensitivity, dry humor, and concern about finances and her disappearing bloom. And, being a romantic, Jane has quite a lively interest in men, and they in her.

All these elements are present in "The Prisoner of Wool House" but this most recent of Jane's adventures just isn't a gripper. The premise - the court-martial of brother Frank's naval friend and a mysterious French prisoner of war - is fascinating, but the military, shipping, and naval details become tedious, and the necessarily coastal venue was not inviting, possibly because Barron's descriptions are spare and sparse, and possibly because Jane herself wasn't terribly excited about living there.

Many of the characters fail to come truly to life, although the surgeon Mr. Hill, and the accused officer's depressed wife Louise, were interestingly drawn. I had hoped for sight of the Gentleman Rogue, but he must have been off on an adventure of his own. The ever-scrupulous Cassandra was away too, though Mrs. Austen decidedly was not, and was as wonderfully obnoxious as ever. Brother Frank, like all of Jane's brothers, was somewhat self-absorbed but nonetheless quite likeable.

All in all, the "Prisoner" was an enjoyable read but doesn't quite make it to the top shelf. Jane's earlier adventures, particularly "The Man of Cloth", are all up there, however, and are as much fun as even the historical Jane could have wished for.

Rating:
Summary: Better and Better She Gets...
Review: I have enjoyed the whole series of Jane Austin mysteries. I think this one is a bit weaker than the earlier ones, but entertaining nonetheless. My main concern here is that the action in this seems a little farfetched. I know that the time of Jane Austin was much more liberal more women than the Victorian age, but I have a very difficult time imagining that Jane would actually have been able to do all the things that she does here. Rowing out to a burning prison hulk and nursing French sailers in a military prison seem unlikely, even for a character of Jane's pluck.

There is plenty of action here--the story is engaging and the characters are good. I continue to like the way this series is developing.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good
Review: I have enjoyed the whole series of Jane Austin mysteries. I think this one is a bit weaker than the earlier ones, but entertaining nonetheless. My main concern here is that the action in this seems a little farfetched. I know that the time of Jane Austin was much more liberal more women than the Victorian age, but I have a very difficult time imagining that Jane would actually have been able to do all the things that she does here. Rowing out to a burning prison hulk and nursing French sailers in a military prison seem unlikely, even for a character of Jane's pluck.

There is plenty of action here--the story is engaging and the characters are good. I continue to like the way this series is developing.

Rating:
Summary: Another fun Jane Austen romp
Review: In 1807, novelist Jane Austen is in Southampton with her brother Frank as he attempts to secure himself a ship. When one of his friends and fellow officers in the British navy is accused of a particularly foul murder, Frank flounders, certain of his friend's innocence yet unable to determine a plan of action. Fortunately for Frank, and for Frank's friend, Jane is only too willing to take on the mystery. Before long there are suspects for a frame and dead bodies, all in the context of proper Jane Austen manners.

Author Stephanie Barron does an excellent job describing England at war with Napoleon, on the verge of the industrial age, and in the transition to the modern world. Manners, position in society, and inherited wealth still play major roles, and marrying the right man is the ultimate goal for the proper woman. Barron is obviously sympathetic with her heroine, a novelist whose personal life is far from ideal, while not attempting to give Austen unduly modern attitudes.

Mixed in with the pleasurable historical view and literary references, Barron manages to deliver an exciting mystery as well. With a prisoner of war camp, a dramatic rescue at sea, and plenty of evil and simply naughty red herrings on the scene, Austen has all she can do to keep her senses and sensibilities about her and help prevent a terrible injustice. JANE AND THE PRISONER OF WOOL HOUSE is a lot of fun.

Rating:
Summary: A great addition to the series
Review: Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House is the sixth book in Stephanie Barron's series based on discovered material supposedly written by Austen herself. This time around the action takes place in Southampton and Portsmouth and involves a naval captain who has been accused of murdering the captain of a captured French ship. What follows is a somewhat tangled plot as Jane and her brother Frank attempt to discover what really happened. The only thing missing is an appearance by the Gentleman Rogue, although this lack is somewhat made up for by the introduction of Etienne Laforge. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and am eagerly anticipating the next in the series!

Rating:
Summary: A great addition to the series
Review: Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House is the sixth book in Stephanie Barron's series based on discovered material supposedly written by Austen herself. This time around the action takes place in Southampton and Portsmouth and involves a naval captain who has been accused of murdering the captain of a captured French ship. What follows is a somewhat tangled plot as Jane and her brother Frank attempt to discover what really happened. The only thing missing is an appearance by the Gentleman Rogue, although this lack is somewhat made up for by the introduction of Etienne Laforge. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and am eagerly anticipating the next in the series!

Rating:
Summary: Archaic and tedious reading
Review: Jane Austen--the one and only--was with us for a skant 42 years during which she produced six novel masterpieces. Understandably, any echoes of Jane Austen will be eagerly read by Jane's aficionados. These thin imitations show determined research and an attempt to copy Jane's style. But they're really continued, faux biographies, with a shallow mystery throw in. Jane wrote her novels a mere 60 years or so after the very first novel ever, Pamela, by Richardson, and that early style of writing naturally shows in her own writing style. But if she lived today, as a perceptive woman and a great writer, having learned modern ways developed in two hundred years, Jane would deplore the lengthy blocks of narration, words that lack simplicity or are misused or invented, and the stilted dialogue in these. If she lived today, she would write, as good modern writers write now, with many scenes, and easy to read short, casual dialogue, in place of long narratives and speechily-long and pedantic dialogue. So, it was a good commercial idea--to sell books to the many Jane Austen admirers. But on its own merits as a book to read and enjoy, it simply has an archaic, dusty, dull writing style, the only merit of which is that it attempts to copy the original--but unsuccessfully. Jane's books had real sense and sensibility and moral values. These books are very tedious, boring reads with sparse, thin mysteries, annoying footnotes which would be better placed in a term paper or history book than in a mystery (Jane did not use footnotes), and Tom Swiftys in the peculiar speech tags by which speakers interpose or interject remarks rather than simply saying them, thus showing no evidence of progress in writing style in the passage of a quarter of a millennium since Pamela, in a changed world, when novels and writers and people are much different. It's just an imitation, and a plain-Jane one at that, yet many will accept it for what it is, a period piece, and an echo of Jane. But for nostalgia, why not just re-read Jane Austen herself, the genuine article? That's the real mystery in this so-called "mystery" but really biography series.

Rating:
Summary: Another engrossing entry in a wonderful mystery series
Review: Stephanie Barron's Jane Austen mystery series has maintained its freshness and appeal through this, the sixth in the series. These books are supposedly Austen's "discovered diaries" edited by Barron, whose explanatory footnotes help the reader better understand the time period and locale.

This episode finds Jane in Southampton in 1807. Her brother Frank, a post captain in the Royal Navy, is convinced that his good friend Tom Seagrave, a captain who stands accused of violating the Articles of War (the punishment for which is death), is innocent. Jane becomes convinced as well, and together, they set out to prove it. Their conviction takes them from Southampton's finest homes to its darkest slums, from the sickroom of French prisoners of war to the discovery of espionage and finally, a revelation of ultimate betrayal.

Barron shows herself to be a master of plot here, as a tangled (but never convoluted) web of intrigue and revenge is slowly revealed. The many characters and motivations are complex and fully drawn, and Jane's enthusiasm for the Navy gives us a glimpse into a time when military service could mean the making of a fortune.

I'm not an Austen scholar, but I am an Austen fan, and I enjoy the entire series for the way it evokes Austen's sly sense of humor in reporting the events and people that surround her. The only thing that kept me from giving 5 stars is that I was able to solve the mystery myself.