cover image Death and Sensibility: A Jane Austen Society Mystery

Death and Sensibility: A Jane Austen Society Mystery

Elizabeth Blake. Crooked Lane, $26.99 (336p) ISBN 978-1-64385-730-5

Blake’s uneven sequel to 2019’s Pride, Prejudice, and Poison takes Kirkbymoorside bookstore owner Erin Coleridge, a member of the Jane Austen Society’s Northern Branch, to York, England, for a Jane Austen conference. At the meet and greet in the packed bar of the conference hotel, Erin observes middle-aged Oxford don Barry Wolf, the keynote speaker, looking at his assistant, Stephen Mahoney, with an expression of “pure malice” as Stephen chats in an overly familiar way with Wolf’s much younger wife. The next morning, Wolf turns up dead of an apparent heart attack in a hotel cloakroom. Or is it a case of foul play? Not just Stephen might have had reason to murder Wolf, who had a knack for making enemies. Det. Peter Hemming, with whom Erin tangled in the previous book, investigates, as does Erin, despite being warned off by Peter. An ingenious plot and an appealing setting help compensate for a nebulous time frame and a sequence of events that can be hard to follow. Jane Austen fans will look forward to seeing more of Erin and friends. Agent: Paige Wheeler, CMA Lit. (Aug.)