The newest, and yes (sob) final novel in Stephanie Barron’s Jane Austen mystery series, this one set in an all-boys school, which has to be fun. Here are some thoughts on previous titles.

Jane lives! And so does Byron in this tenth novel in the Jane Austen series by Stephanie Barron. On their way to Brighton, Jane and her brother Henry rescue a fainting beauty from the fell clutches of Lord Byron, who has conceived a passion for the one woman in England able to resist his fatal allure. When the beauty is murdered, Byron falls under suspicion and Jane of course ferrets out the truth.

Barron makes England’s Regency era come alive in the period detail, and the characters, especially the sullen, sexy Lord Byron and the fey, feckless Lady Caroline Lamb fairly leap off the page. For Janeites there is much to enjoy in Jane’s mental segues into Mansfield Park, the current work under construction:

I cannot like my poor Fanny, tho’ her scruples are such as must command respect; I believe I shall spare the darling Henry such a cross, and bestow the lady upon her cousin Edmund — who has earned her as a penance, for her utter lack of humour.

There are echoes of many of Austen’s characters in the characters inhabiting Brighton during Jane’s investigation, among them Mr. Forth, the Master of Ceremonies in the Assembly Rooms at Marine Parade, who will bring the character of Anne Elliot’s father irresistibly to mind. At the time this novel is set, Pride and Prejudice has been published to much acclaim, and while with one exception the author’s identity is still only that of “A Lady,” we enjoy her fans’ praise as much as she does.

Crime fiction fans will love Jane’s businesslike investigation, too. In a time where physical evidence amounted to the body, eyewitness testimony is essential, and the list of questions that must be asked Jane draws up to begin with are pithy and very much to the point, and by listing them she and the reader come to a better understanding of the murder and what kind of a murderer she is looking for. Her interview of a drunken Byron is riveting, Jane really has a tiger by the tail, and at the end of the novel you will be convinced beyond all shadow of a doubt that he was indeed “mad, bad and dangerous to know.”

Being the thirteenth of Stephanie Barron’s Jane Austen mysteries. Jane, as the newly revealed author of Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park, is summoned to Carlton House. Not, as you might expect, to meet the Prince Regent, who is occupied with sitting for his Waterloo portrait, but to view the prince’s magnificent library and avail herself of its amenities as a room in which to write her next book. Jane does not approve of the regent and after she fulfills her duty to this royal command is going to do no such thing, until a Hero (Jane and Barron make that a proper noun in the stile [sic] of the day and I follow suit) of the battle of Waterloo falls at her feet, in death throes from poisoning by yew needles. When Providence provides, what can Jane do but investigate?

From the body in the library [squee!] to the cameo appearance by the Duke of Wellington and the reappearance of that dashing painter slash spy, Raphael West (whom we first met in Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas), Jane ignores, avoids and denies the constrictions and shibboleths accruing to her sex in this time and place to seek out the villain and bring him to justice. There are false starts and red herrings, her brother Henry’s annoyance at his sister’s predilection for these unladylike exploits and her own attraction to West to navigate, but never doubt that Jane will get there in the end.

When not detecting, Jane is editing Emma, or she is when her new publisher finally gets the proofs to her

“Suprizes are foolish things,” I intoned in Mr. Knightley’s voice. “The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.” I have a decided talent for an epigram; I hope it delights my readers as much as myself.

It does, Jane, it does, and Barron knows this full well and shamelessly and delightfully exploits Jane’s own real world words to enhance Barron’s narrative. There are also echoes from Jane’s books that are so poignant as to be a little painful

I should have spoken.

I should have said, loudly or softly, You know that you may command me in anything, Raphael West.

Jane Bennet, anyone, who nearly lost Bingley because Darcy thought her indifferent? And see Jane’s thoughts on Anne Elliott, the heroine of her next novel, Persuasion

I shall spend my hours in consideration of a young woman long since On the Shelf, the daughter of a foolish but privileged family, whose good sense in chusing a man of action and prowess is rewarded as such wisdom usually is: by being dissuaded from risk, and channeled with the best possible motives into an oppressive and stultifying spinsterhood.

Ouch. Jane’s voice is so clear and so real and often so acerbic in these novels that you feel as if you are residing behind and just to the left of her occipital lobe throughout. I could move in for good.

The entire world is in the grip of The Year Without Summer, her family is beset by ill fortune on every front, and Jane herself is in declining health, so Jane and Cassandra visit Cheltenham Spa to drink the waters and of course for Jane to confound a killer. The period detail is as always superb and Barron as is her custom employs lines from Jane’s work in dialogue that provide lovely grace notes throughout the narrative, especially at the end. Jane is not going out with a whimper here, although your heart will break for her anyway.

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But really they are all great reads. Enjoy!

Book Review Monday Chatter Jane and the Final Mystery jane austen stephanie barron