For September’ s Series-ous Reading selection, the Sister in Sleuthing that I revisited was Jane Austen, via Stephanie Barron’s delightful mystery series, with Jane and His Lordship’s Legacy.
The late gentleman of the title was Lord Harold Trowbridge, aka The Gentleman Rogue, who often included Jane is some of his secret missions for king and country. His demise took place in an earlier entry(which I haven’t read yet but have future plans to do so here).
Upon setting up house keeping with her mother at Chawton Cottage, Jane is greeted by a pair of strange surprises. The first is a lawyer from Sir Harold’s estate bearing a large chest that contains a bequeath from his Lordship’s will.
The contents, much to her mother’s dismay, are not monetary-rather, the private letters and other writings of Sir Harold that are meant to be literary inspiration for her.
While freshly adjusting to this unexpected abundance of insight into the one man she truly cared for, Jane discovers the remains of a local workman named Shafto French in the cellar.
How Mr. French’s body(which shows disturbing signs of having been down there before Jane and her mother arrived) came to be there is mystery enough without most of the neighborhood appearing to hold a grudge against the newly arrived Austens, due in part to her brother Edward’s lackluster attention to his tenants.
However, Shafto’s death may be part of a more sinister plot as the chest of Sir Harold’s papers is stolen from the house. As it turns out, the parentage of a potential heir to the nearby estate of Stonings named Julian Thrace, may be confirmed within those papers.
The other claimant is Lady Imogene, whose gambling debts would be secured by such an inheritance. Jane suspects that her ladyship may have hired some local workers (such as the man caught climbing out of a Chawton Cottage window!) to learn the truth for herself.
As the rivalry between the two heirs grows deadly, Jane persists in investigating before more lives are lost as well as holding onto the hope of retrieving the only solid remembrance of the only man she may ever have loved:
Despite reading a good portion of this series out of order, this story resonates strongly with some of the sorrowful notes that one sees in Austen’s later works for me. Barron knows the world of Austen so well that her blend of real life and fictional characters feels engagingly authentic.
Speaking of engaging, Jane’s mother is quite the comic delight with her complaints about her daughter not at least getting some jewelry from Sir Harold’s will but starts digging up her yard upon hearing a local legend about a buried ruby necklace!
She is so Mrs. Bennet like here and a welcome note of levity in the midst of this detective drama:
No comments:
Post a Comment