Hampshire, 11th December 1795. (“Mad” King George III is on the throne) Young Jane Austin, dressed in muslin and shell pink slippers, flits across the garden of a Tudor mansion – she must have been very cold. She is meeting Tom Lefroy in the glass house to receive his kisses and a proposal of marriage.
But this is thwarted when a body is found in a downstairs linen closet. Jane recognised the dead woman, Madame Renault, a milliner. Jane had recently bought a straw hat from her at Basingstoke market.
Suspicion soon lands on Jane’s brother. George is found with a chain belonging to the dead woman and is arrested. Of course Jane sets out to find who the murderer is. She uses her wits and single mindedness to reveal secrets and motives to solve the case and prevent George from hanging. Jane uses her connections with society, we meet many of them, such as Alethea Bigg and her thin read eyebrows.
Written in the first person present, Jessica Bull knows her Austin. It has been said that Jane Austin almost turned her back on writing when she met Tom Lefroy.
If you are a fan of Jane Austin’s writing you will enjoy this book. If you are an avid reader of crime fiction novels with pace and plot you may not. I find the endless exposition and minutiae holds up the pace.
I also had a problem with the narrative woven about George. Why weave a narrative so at odds with the facts in a book so well researched? I will expand my thoughts on this: George was probably a deaf, dumb, and epileptic. Jane was about three when George was sent away from home.Jane never mentioned him once in any of her surviving letters. When George’s mother died she did not even mention him in her will. People reading this book will have the allusion that he was a part of a loving close family and add this to the Austin oeuvre.
