Deception at Lyme by Carrie Bebris - Delicious 5 Star!

The Deception at Lyme: Or, The Peril of Persuasion by Carrie Bebris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I purchased this book in 2011, and for some reason I have never gotten around to reading it. I don't know why this happens, and sometimes, when I finally read the book I have put off, I discover I really was missing something. I loved this book. I will only make one complaint which will be at the end of the review, and think it might make this book actually a 4 1/2 star, but I will leave it at 5 for the official rating.

Carrie Bebris has written a series of books with Elizabeth and Darcy as sleuths. The Deception at Lyme is number 6 in the series. Throughout the stories, our dear couple find themselves somewhere in the midst of a murder mystery. (In this book Elizabeth comments "one of these days I would like to journey from Pemberley without encountering a single corpse). They are uniquely suited, with their intelligence, objectivity, and financial freedom, to investigate the crime. In addition, in each book they are in a local found in another of Jane Austen's books, and meet characters from her other books. In this story, you can see the subtitle is The Peril of Persuasion, so it makes complete sense for them to be traveling in Lyme and meeting the Elliots, the Wentworths, etal.

During their visit in Lyme, Darcy, Elizabeth, their daugher Lily-Anne, and Georgiana, along with friends, discover a woman who has fallen from the high wall of the Cobb, the sea wall at Lyme. Tragically the woman dies, but goes into labor prior to her death and delivers a live son. In seeking the identify of the woman and the father's child, they meet Sir Walter Elliot and Miss Elliot who are also staying in Lyme. The night before Mrs. Clay's death and the birth of her son, Sir Walter married her, making the boy Sir Walter's heir. Mr. Elliot, the prior heir, however, claims the boy as his son. All of this becomes tangled as Lily-Anne's behavior and a few words of the dying woman cause Elizabeth to question whether the fall was an accident or if the woman was pushed. Add to this the sea chest of Darcy's deceased cousin, Gerard Fitzwilliam, strange behavior on the part of a navy Lieutenant, and subtle hints of smuggling, and the story is filled with intrigue and mystery.

As I mentioned at the top of my review, there is one complaint I have with the story: just too many people are incidentally connected to the mystery and the back story. It just became a little too coincidental that everyone the Darcy's met eventually had some part to play in the story. The plotting was clever, and the involvement of the characters was well done, but it just felt a tiny bit contrived. Couldn't they have just met some people in Lyme that did not have an interest in the mystery?

However, having gotten that off my chest, I can say that I really loved The Deception at Lyme. Carrie Bebris has Darcy and Elizabeth down and so many of the little incidents or conversations caught me laughing right out loud. And, if you have read Persuasion, you know the Elliot family has quite a few odd ducks and Sir Walter Elliot is amazingly vain and full of his own consequence and that of his connections. Status is everything! And, this makes him so funny.

Darcy's dry humor is also present, and, of course, bounces off Elizabeth's wit very effectively. But, the author can simply put things in such a way that tickles my funny bone. In one inconsequential scene where the Darcys are getting to know the Wentworths (Frederick and Anne), Elizabeth and Anne are having a very lovely time, as young mothers do, talking about everything to do with their babies. After a couple of just heartfelt paragraphs describing this conversation, the author then states very baldly "Darcy was bored nearly to the limit of endurance." This had me totally on the floor. And, this happened many, many times throughout the book.

Of course, this is a murder mystery and not all fun and games, so there are many tense and sensitive moments as well. Pride and Prejudice both are expressed and we see a very interesting turn of events by the end of the book. I thought I saw this coming somewhere along the line, so there must have been some subtle foreshadowing by the author. The story comes to a very satisfying conclusion, although with a few surprises and disappointments for a couple of characters. But, hey, this is Darcy and Elizabeth - there will be a HEA!

Now I have to go back and see what others I have missed in this series. This one was just too delicious and I need more to feed my appetite. Very highly recommended!

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