Stephanie Barron's first departure from the Jane Austen mystery novels takes place during the Victorian era. It involves Queen Victoria and begins with the death of Prince Albert in 1861. Albert has a secret and numerous good guys and bad guys want that secret so badly that they are willing to kill for it (and they do so with relish). This reads like a gothic romance—unrequited love, a murderous stormy night, guilty secrets, hopes dashed, revenge plotted, etc. In fact it is major melodrama with purple prose and lots of exclamation points. I love Barron's Jane Austen mysteries - in those she really knows her Jane and the Regency period. But unfortunately this departure isn't up to her usual stellar mystery treatment. It starts very slowly and I found it difficult to get into. Reviews say that it's a fast pace potboiler. I could see the potboiler aspect, but fast paced? Maybe for the horse and buggy period but not in this novel. I couldn't finish it. The prose was too purple for my tastes - definitely in the "it was a dark and storm night" tradition - and the plot didn't seem to pull together before I gave up. The characters aren't all that well drawn and I really didn't care for any of them - especially Victoria. I really wanted to like this book, but I couldn't. I hope she returns to Jane's mysteries as they are the best of her work.
