Astaire is trying to do a couple of things with this book; some worked, some didn't. Still, it's a good Regency Era mystery with a loving look at the little-known Jewish community of the time.

I thoroughly enjoyed the mystery. The well-off Lyon family has been ruined. Much of their wealth was in a bank, and in those days there was no FDIC, or I guess Royal Deposit Insurance Company in Britain. If the bank went bankrupt, there went all your savings -- Jane Austen's favorite brother, Henry, was a partner in a bank that failed -- taking some of his relative's funds. Paper money was issued by the bank, not the government, and it was worthless in case of failure. Mr. Lyon had prudently hidden some gold, but someone found the hiding place, and the best suspects are friends that he loves, trusts, and cannot find it in his heart to doubt. Ezra Melamed, the pillar of the community, remarks somewhat drily that if no-one stole it, where did it go? To make matters worse, his oldest daughter just became engaged, and now he has no dowry for her, just a lot of bills for her trousseau.

The setting and characters are beautifully written. Regency Era London is vividly created, and so is the tightly knit Jewish community. We see wealthy shopkeepers and manufacturers, street gangs, orphans that the community is providing for. An unmarried man has all the matrons thinking about a suitable wife. It is also clear how complicated it is living as observant Jews in an overwhelmingly gentile world. They frequent a coffee house kept by a Jewish couple -- it apparently doesn't cater exclusively to Jews. The proprietors don't allow outside food to be brought in, lest some gentile lay food that isn't kosher, or simply the wrong food on the wrong plate. When they travel, they have to find Jewish inns to stay in, or perhaps find a Jewish family that will take them in. It must have been complicated building this world in which they can more or less freely move.

This is something I admire about Jews -- a contemporary woman wrote about her family being exiled from their country, but a Jewish help agency was there, putting them up in hotels, feeding them, helping them emigrate to other countries, loaning them airfare, and although she didn't say it, likely arranging for Jews in their new country to meet them and show them the ropes.

What doesn't work too well is Astaire's "Watson." The mysteries are supposed to be narrated by the teenage Rebecca Lyon, in an Austen-like manner, but of course she can't join Melamed in his investigations, and she often knows things that it is hard to imagine how she learned. There are insertions in the story where she does speak, and they are good -- her voice just isn't apparent most of the time. I am going to continue with the series, and perhaps Astaire will work this out.

Just one thing -- there are three series featuring Ezra Melamed -- in the Ezra Melamed series consolidated I have tried to put all the works in chronological order. ( )