Jane and the Genius of the Place: Being the Fourth Jane Austen Mystery (Being A Jane Austen Mystery) - Softcover

Austen, of course, had all the qualities of a good detective: the superb attention to detail, fervid imagination, and salty disdain for pretension. Barron makes excellent use of these attributes, plopping Jane Poirot-like into the middle of a crime at the Canterbury Races, then surrounding her with mysterious and possibly sinister figures involved in aiding or thwarting Napoleon's plans.

The writing, as stylized as it is ("There is nothing like the country for the rapid communication of what is dreadful"), never gets in the way of Barron's carefully plotted story, and in the end most readers will find they've managed to satisfy their appetites both for Austen and for mystery. First-timers will be delighted to hear that the three earlier books in Barron's series (Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, Jane and the Man of the Cloth, and Jane and the Wandering Eye) are available in paperback. --Dick Adler

In the waning days of summer, Jane Austen is off to the Canterbury Races, where the rich and fashionable gamble away their fortunes. It is an atmosphere ripe for scandal -- but even Jane is unprepared for the shocking drama that unfolds. A flamboyant French beauty, known for her brazen behavior, is found gruesomely strangled in a shabby chaise. While many urge the arrest of a known scoundrel with eyes for the victim, Jane looks further afield and finds a number of acquaintances behaving oddly. As rumors spread like wildfire that Napoleon's fleet is bound for Kent, Jane suspects that the murder was an act of war rather than a crime of passion. Suddenly the peaceful fields of Kent are a very dangerous place...and Jane's thirst for justice may exact the steepest price of all -- her life.