The one where Mr. Darcy turns detective: non JAFF detective fiction influencing Lover’s Knot (or Regency Sleuths whom I have loved…)
Thank you to Maria
Grazia for having me back at My Jane Austen Book Club. It is a pleasure and an
honour to visit with my new book, “Lover’s Knot”.
“Detective” is not an
epithet that fits particularly well on the shoulders of Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy.
At least, not at first sight. The Regency is not the right period for a start,
being well before the heyday of crime fiction and prior to the literary
evolution of the “gentleman detective”. The formation of the police as we know
and understand them had only just begun. What is more, fighting crime just isn’t
what everyone’s favourite hero is about. Mr. Darcy’s world view
was likely narrower than that of your average sleuth. He is, after all, a
gentleman of the landed classes, a reluctant character of the ton, a man of
means and a man of his age. His focus is family, home, close friends,
dependants. He doesn’t look too hard at the wider world and nobody asks that he does.
