Before I say anything about this book, I just want to say that I like Fanny Price. I know most people find her an irritating prig but I do not. Thrust into a family who don't want her in a house which is totally alien to her way of living, disliked and put upon by everyone, with the exception of Edmund, she manages to keep her true self through all trials and tribulations until her worth is finally realised. She is a good person and, I suspect, goodness in a novel is boring.
So if you are one of the multitude who really dislike her then you are going to love this book as Fanny meets a sticky end. She is murdered. Yes, shock horror!
The wittiest thing about Murder at Mansfield Park is the way the character's dispositions have been swapped around. Far from being poor, despised and retiring Fanny is a rich heiress, queening it at Mansfield Park and positively sucked up to by Aunt Norris who wishes her to marry her son and gain her fortune. In this book, her son is Edmund who is just as shy and boring as he is in Jane Austen's novel. I will admit here that I always want to shake Edmund for his sometimes wilful blindness to what goes on around him and wonder what Fanny sees in him. Anyway, apart from Edmund's change of position, we find that Fanny has all the arrogance and conceit which JA gives to Maria Bertram; her younger sister Julia is shy, retiring and put upon by Aunt Norris and is now Fanny; she is very close to her brother, William who has just gone off to sea. Tom Bertram seems essentially the same as in the original.
Now we come to the Crawfords. I am well aware that Mary C has far more supporters and admirers than Fanny P and I sometimes wonder when reading Mansfield Park if Jane Austen secretly longed to marry her off to Edmund (she would certainly have gingered him up a bit), as she goes out of her way to make us like Mary. There are many admirable things about her. She loves her brother, is kind to Fanny and befriends her, putting Aunt Norris in her place on one occasion, and I am never sure if she is as calculating as we are supposed to think she is. Ditto Henry. In Mansfield Park Revisited by Joan Aiken, Mary is now a dying heroine loved by all and we find that her brother Henry was more sinned against than sinning in his involvement with Mrs Rushworth. In Murder at Mansfield Park Lynn Shepherd rehabilitates her even more thoroughly by making her clear thinking, affectionate, sensible and clear headed. There is even a quote ascribed to Anne Eliot 'none so capable as Anne' in Persuasion which is reused here when speaking of Mary.
Henry has the misfortune to fall in love with Fanny and they elope and marry as she is tired of her engagement to Edmund and wishes to shock and upset her family who she despises. Within days of this marriage Henry realises her true nature and knows he has made a dreadful mistake. She then disappears and nobody can find her until she turns up dead at the bottom of a ditch being dug at Mansfield Park where improvements are being undertaken. So a 'thief finder' is called in to solve the mystery and we are introduced to Charles Maddox who sets about finding the murderer. The rest of the book is taken up with his investigation and his relationships with the family and, in particular, with Mary who he finds fascinating and intelligent and he gradually falls in love with her.
I guessed who the murderer was with very little difficulty by a process of elimination and getting rid of those suspects who I knew could not possibly be cast as the culprit and I daresay others will as well, but for me the main delight and enjoyment I took from this book was not the solving of the mystery, but the usage of the original story and characters who have been turned on their heads. I found this engaging, witty and amusing and great fun. Lynn Shepherd has the right turn of phrase and sounds positively Janeite and, while there are many other sequels, prequels etc linked to Jane Austen's novels, most of which I dislike, this is not one of them.
Great STUFF and a good read. I gather this is Lynn's first novel so I wonder what she will do next? How about bumping off Sir Walter Elliot or, even better, Lady Catherine du Burgh? Now there is a thought.....
STOP PRESS - Lynn has very kindly offered two copies of Murder at Mansfield Park as a give away so please just leave your name in the comments section and I will choose the lucky winner at end of week
