Murder Most Persuasive

Kiely's well-paced if somewhat padded third contemporary mystery featuring Jane Austen fan Elizabeth Parker (after 2010's Murder on the Bride's Side) takes its inspiration from Persuasion. After the death of Elizabeth's wealthy 77-year-old uncle, Martin Reynolds, who battled cancer for years, a body is unearthed during pool renovations at a house Reynolds had owned on Maryland's Eastern Shore. To Elizabeth's horror, the remains turn out to belong to her cousin Ann's jilted fianc%C3%A9, Michael Barrow, who had "the morals of a sewer rat" and disappeared with $1 million embezzled from Uncle Marty's business eight years earlier. But what did Michael do with the money? As Elizabeth searches for answers, family interactions occasionally obscure the story line. Janeites will enjoy tracking the parallels to Persuasion, though they might wish the author had stuck more closely to her model and done a better job developing some secondary characters. (Sept.)