A Boldly Daring Scheme: A Regency Cozy
Series: Beatrice Hyde-Clare Mysteries, Book 7
By: Lynn Messina / Narrated By: Jill Smith
Length: 7 hrs
Let me be honest: Was getting this outta the way so that I can get back to Beeeea!!! But it wound up mildly charming…
I KNOW! What high praise, right?! Like, “I was manning-up but was surprised when it didn’t suck…”???
Okay, it’s cuz it’s like this, see… I LOVE Bea, her intelligence, her sharp wit, and I LOVE Kesgrave, HIS intelligence, his ability to laugh at himself. Between the two of them, Messina is able to craft the most clever dialogue ever, and even the mysteries have a bit of a twist to them, tho’ I never expect that much.
And Bea’s family? Wellll, I have indeed appreciated how they’ve evolved over whazzis, the seventh book? Her family, in particular her Uncle changed his stripes oh so sloooowly that it was entirely believable, and Flora has morphed from a ninny to a young woman who actually cares about Bea. I’ve enjoyed her metamorphosis, but her voice? C’mon, we’re talking AUDIObook here, and she miiiiiight not be an out-and-out ninny, but she surely does indeed have the voice of a ninnyhammer, so I was reeeeally worried about 7-hours of Jill Smith with her voice going all upper-register the whole time.
And Smith does. FORtunately, Messina crafts a plethora of other supporting characters and even a sidekick for Flora as she valiantly takes on the challenge of finding out who killed the love of Bea’s life, Theodore Davies. Whenever Flora has mentioned Davies, she’s noted that Bea gets uncomfortable, thereby proving to Flora that Bea KNOWS it was no carriage accident, but was, waaaait for it: MURDER most foul!
Immediately, Flora is out of the house, claiming food poisoning yet again and is off like a shot to find the workplace of Mr. Davies. Whilst contemplating how to go about striding into the rather shabby and forbidding law offices where she thinks she might get answers, she’s waylaid by Holcroft, a gentleman whom she danced with once, and she does NOT think highly of him. He’s all aghast that she’s out on the streets, unchaperoned, this could be scandalous! And in front of such a disreputable building on such a bad street (Flora has indeed noticed all this, and she uhm, well, she’s trying to gather her courage up to stride inside, just as Bea would).
Things get shady right off the bat with notes surreptitiously being passed to Holcroft, and Flora uses all the brainpower she can manage to kinda sorta knock Holcroft over so that she might see the note. Having embarrassed herself in this way, she manages to get some information about a meeting, wangles her way over, and? Discovers a bloodied corpse… and Holcroft’s hand ‘pon her shoulder.
She could scream. She could faint.
She doesn’t. Because now the two of them, once she’s assured Holcroft isn’t the murderer, are in this together, and as the two work together to suss out what-all’s going on, Flora starts noticing that this booooring gentleman actually has beautiful green eyes. And he’s actually kinda sorta nicely staid and is a decent guy in the bargain.
A Boldly Daring Scheme’s greatest flaw is that the mysteries are just a trifle nonsensical -plus- it does that egregious thing where our Hero and heroine are in dire trouble, and the villain spews out, in great and vivid detail, just what the plot was, how it was managed, who-all’s involved and for what specific reasons, blah blah spilling all the beans blah. When I was a newbie to mysteries, I didn’t mind this; actually, I appreciated it as I’d spend the entirety of the book experiencing the writing and the characters and not eeeeven trying to figure out Whodunnit. Now? Okay, I’ve listened to enough to where this style of letting the cat outta the bag is really rather annoying.
But enough of that, as for the most part this is indeed charming; Flora knows her limitations, she becomes a bit more self-aware as the story unfolds (Always a good thing!), and the romance is barely even there. Rather, Flora and Holcroft make for a sweetly dynamic duo.
Flora has been a jolly decent enough character throughout this series, and she’s been written with a good sense of humor that was always there but that gets sharper as things go along. So huzzah for some chuckles as well. Yes, narrator Jill Smith has the plotting little minx in the upper-register all through this, but as Flora learns about herself, as there are dawning realizations, and even a few regrets she now notes, I actually got used to it. Nope, no wanting to cram an ice pick in my ears, and whazzis?!
Why, I know I began the review all tepid-like, but gosh darn it: I think I actually LIKED it.
It’s incredible what writing a review can do for a person: All these stray thoughts, the Likes and Dislikes, are pulled together to form… in this case? A mighty, why, yes please!
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