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Zusatztext “There’s plenty to enjoy in this crime-solving side of Jane. . . . [She] is as worthy a detective as Columbo.” — USA Today “Happily succeeds on all levels: a robust tale of manners and mayhem that faithfully reproduces the Austen style—and engrosses to the finish.” — Kirkus Reviews “Splendid fun!” — Star Tribune ! Minneapolis Informationen zum Autor Stephanie Barron is the author of eight previous Jane Austen mysteries. She lives in Colorado, where she is at work on the next Jane Austen mystery. Klappentext For everyone who loves Jane Austen...a marvelously entertaining new series that turns the incomparable author into an extraordinary sleuth! On a visit to the estate of her friend, the young and beautiful Isobel Payne, Countess of Scargrave, Jane bears witness to a tragedy. Isobel's husband—a gentleman of mature years—is felled by a mysterious and agonizing ailment. The Earl's death seems a cruel blow of fate for the newly married Isobel. Yet the bereaved widow soon finds that it's only the beginning of her misfortune...as she receives a sinister missive accusing her and the Earl's nephew of adultery—and murder. Desperately afraid that the letter will expose her to the worst sort of scandal, Isobel begs Jane for help. And Jane finds herself embroiled in a perilous investigation that will soon have her following a trail of clues that leads all the way to Newgate Prison and the House of Lords—a trail that may well place Jane's own person in the gravest jeopardy. Leseprobe Journal entry, 11 December 1802, written in the small hours "What do you make of it, Jane?" The Countess of Scargrave asked. Her fingers gripped my elbow painfully. I gazed at the recumbent form of her husband with dismay. Frederick, Lord Scargrave, was decidedly unwell--so unwell that I had been called to his bedside an hour before dawn, an indiscretion the Earl would never have allowed while possessed of his senses. I pulled the collar of my dressing gown closer about my neck and placed my free hand over the Countess's. "I believe that your husband is dying, Isobel," I told her. Her fingers moved convulsively under my own, and then were still. "Dying. Were I to hear it so declared a thousand times, I still should not believe it possible." I surveyed my friend with silent pity, uncertain how to answer such distress. The transformation wrought upon her husband's agonized countenance was indeed extraordinary--and had required but a few hours to effect. That very evening, the Earl had led his Countess down the dance in Scargrave's ballroom, revelling in the midst of a company come to toast the fortunes of them both. Despite his eight-and-forty years, he shone as a man blessed with second youth, elegant and lively, the very charm of his race crying out from every limb. And tho' he had complained of dyspepsia before, this illness came upon him of a sudden--and with a violence one may hardly credit to an overfondness for claret and pudding. "Had he taken aught to eat or drink in the past few hours?" I asked. My friend shook her head. "Only a milk toddy and some sweetmeats the maid brought to him upon retiring. But I do not believe he had long consumed them before the sickness laid him prostrate." The stench of the Earl's illness rose from the fouled sheets the maids would not change for fear of paining him further. His breath was caught thick within his throat, and his strength worn down by dizzyness and a violence of puking such as one usually sees under the influence of a purgative. His eyes were rolled back in drowsy oblivion, his skin was pallid, and his features were bloated. It was a trial merely to observe such suffering; to endure it must have been fearsome. As I watched with Isobel by his bedside, awaiting the doctor summoned in haste from London, the Earl gave fo...
