{"id":13464,"date":"2020-03-12T18:51:59","date_gmt":"2020-03-12T22:51:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=13464"},"modified":"2020-03-12T18:51:59","modified_gmt":"2020-03-12T22:51:59","slug":"brunette-by-stan-jackson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=13464","title":{"rendered":"‘Brunette,’ by Stan Jackson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Stan Jackson\u2019s Ste Webster mystery series<\/strong> continues with its second hair color title, Brunette<\/a><\/em>. Once again Ste, a professor at the University of York, has a murder to solve\u2026 for reasons of his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mackenzie West was, despite her brown hair, a golden girl at\nthe University. Beautiful and popular, she was a good student and a star\nathlete, a prospect for the British Olympic fencing team. Until one morning she\nplunged down a stairwell to her death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It could have been an accident, or suicide, but the police\nsuspect murder, and Inspector Allen would like nothing better than to pin it on\nSte Webster. Failing that, there\u2019s another faculty member he has his eye on,\nMatt Harper, head of the Philosophy Department. Matt\u2019s a friend, and Ste doesn\u2019t\nbelieve he did it. When both Mackenzie\u2019s parents and Matt ask him to look into\nthe matter, he hesitates but agrees, partly to appease his personal demons. He\u2019ll\nhave to keep out of Inspector Allen\u2019s way, but he\u2019ll try.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It soon appears that Mackenzie had dark secrets no one guessed.\nSte finds not one but several people who had plausible reasons for killing her.\nWhich gives them reasons for silencing Ste as well\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As with Blonde<\/em>, the previous book in the series, I enjoyed Brunette <\/em>quite a lot, but had reservations. The prose is very good, and I like Ste and his supporting cast. As an added bonus, both Chesterton and C. S. Lewis get quoted (though Ste is not religious).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the down side, I\u2019m still annoyed by Ste\u2019s tendency to walk\ninto danger without protection, and the author\u2019s tendency to rescue him through\nsheer luck. That\u2019s a plot strategy that can\u2019t be sustained forever. Also, the\nconclusion of the book was a little bit ambivalent in moral terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, I\u2019m going on to the next book. The pleasures outweigh my reservations. Minor cautions are in order for language and subject matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stan Jackson\u2019s Ste Webster mystery series continues with its second hair color title, Brunette. Once again Ste, a professor at the University of York, has a murder to solve\u2026 for reasons of his own. Mackenzie West was, despite her brown hair, a golden girl at the University. Beautiful and popular, she was a good student … Continue reading ‘Brunette,’ by Stan Jackson<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[416,2172,2646,2656],"class_list":["post-13464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-brunette","tag-perry-webster","tag-stan-jackson","tag-ste-webster"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}