A Most Agreeable Murder - Julia Seales - ★★★.¾

AUTHOR: Julia Seales

GENRE: Parody, Regency Cosy Mystery.

RATING: 3.75 stars.

In a Nutshell: A mostly agreeable parody of Regency-era dramatic mysteries, combining elements from historical fiction, Regency romance, cosy mystery, satire, and humour. A good debut work, but it tries too hard and hence stumbles a bit. Nevertheless, a fun experience. To be read with all logic kept firmly aside and with your wacky hats on.

Story Synopsis:

Regency-Era England. (The year is left to our imagination.)

Swampshire is a swampy little township that no one has heard about, with its key features being swamps, frogs, and hail. Nevertheless, it has its set of loyal residents who follow the set of rules laid down by the founding father Baron Ashbrook a long time ago.

One such family is the Steele family, whose eldest daughter Beatrice Steele is burdened with the responsibility of having to marry well. Sadly, she has no talent that could make her a good wife, with her needlework, artwork, and music being equally bad. The only interest that she has is an unhealthy passion for true crime cases, which she reads on the sly in newspapers, quite against the guiding rules about acceptable behaviour for ladies.

When a person drops dead at a ball the Steele family is attending at Stabmort Park, Beatrice sees it as a great opportunity to employ her detective skills.

The story comes to us mostly in the limited third person perspective of Beatrice, with the rest of the details being supplied by letters, newspaper articles, and other media.

Bookish Yays:

😍 Jane Austen fans will be mostly happy to see the number of Easter eggs scattered in this Austen pastiche. Right from plot elements such as “taking a turn around the room to show off our figures to advantage”, to some of the character names and personalities that are directly or indirectly inspired by Austen’s novels, to places like Gretna Green and Bath, to the mention of minor Austen elements such as “Fordyce’s Sermons” – we Austenites will find plenty of inside jokes. Of course, some purists might end up offended at some of the content. But I read the plot in the spirit of “laughing with Austen” rather than “laughing at Austen” (the latter being something I would never do), so I had a merry time. Moreover, Austen herself was quite satirical in her works, and a similar tone persists in this work, though at a more burlesque level.

😍 The book doesn’t poke fun only at Regency tropes but also at Brit tropes. Whether it’s their tendency to talk about the weather or their (historical) disdain for all things French, the plot incorporates these English quirks with great finesse.

😍 Beatrice makes for an outstanding lead character, a part of which is because she is not perfect unlike so many Regency heroines. Her passion for crime solving, her lack of talent in anything creative, and her determined personality turn her into a MC we can root for despite her flaws.

😍 A majority of the secondary characters also have their own charms (and harms.) Most of these characters fit some or the other clichéd Regency role, but in a farcical way. Some characters are given distinct characteristics such as Captain Peña's propensity for sailing metaphors, Daniel's tendency to rhyme his maxims, Mr. Steele’s love for pranks and Mr. Ashford’s obsession with tonics. All this adds to the fun.

😍 I like how the characters come from a variety of backgrounds in a Bridgerton-series kind of way, but their ethnicity isn’t used as an excuse for exoticism. Vivek Drake was my favourite, for obvious reasons.

😍 The mystery aspect of the book is fairly satisfying. As a locked room mystery, it uses the setting of Stabmort Park (which seems to be aptly named, just as Swampshire is!) quite well, right from its turrets to its marshy grounds. The author does a good job of keeping multiple characters on the radar of suspense. Though the final section gets a tad too convoluted, it is still fairly gripping. I admit, I am not a big fan of cosy mysteries, and I hate extended info-dumps. But the reveal scene in this book was pretty decent and I made it through without rolling my eyes.

😍 Though there is a repeated mention of “tingling sensations during arm brushes", there is no “romantic romance” in the plot. I always like books that don’t force their lead characters into a romantic relationship.

😍 An added Yay for that gorgeous cover art!!

Bookish If Onlys:

😐 The youngest Steele sister, Mary, had a lot of potential in her arc. But both on the page and off, her character remains mostly behind the scenes. I wish her character had received as much prominence as the other two Steele sisters, and also that her unusual physical characteristic had been elaborated upon. (I have my suspicions about the reason, but the book should have tackled this rather than leaving it dangling.)

Bookish Nays:

😣 Right from the first page, the book is quite tongue-in-cheek. Though I am a fan of Austen’s timeless classics, I still chortled at how the author used the same lines in a hilarious fashion to poke fun at the common tropes. But humour is best served in moderation. When physical grossness such as snot and spittle is used to elicit laughs, it isn’t funny anymore, and is not even true to Austen’s voice. A character named Grub, who seems to be modelled on Mr. Collins, has the most disgusting portrayal that goes much over the top and kills the enjoyment. Toning down Grub’s grubby personality would have helped.

Bookish Doubt:

👀 What was with all the frogs? Did anyone get the literary significance of that? Or was it poking fun at some other trope? Or am I simply trying to assign a meaning where there is none, à la most English teachers?

All in all, this is a book that doesn’t take itself seriously, and thus, it will work best when you too don’t take it seriously. Go in with the right expectations and laugh along with it to enjoy the ride better. For a debut work, it does pretty well without shoving in a bucket-load of themes. I will certainly look forward to more books by this author.

My heart says that this is being planned as a series. If so, Mary’s character needs and deserves more attention in the subsequent books.

Recommended to Regency mystery lovers who have a quirky sense of humour and can read parodies in the right spirit.

3.75 stars. (Would have gone a bit higher had I enjoyed cosy mysteries more.)

My thanks to Random House Publishing Group - Random House and NetGalley for the DRC of “A Most Agreeable Murder”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.