The eponymous Jane of the title Jane and the Canterbury Tale (#149) is the incomparable Jane Austen. In the eleventh outing of Stephanie Barron's mystery series, Jane lends her hand in solving the death of a stranger when a body is found along the old Pilgrims Way to Canterbury bordering her brother Edward's Kentish estate of Godmersham.
What possible connection can the stranger have to a strange wedding gift sent to the bride at the wedding reception Jane and her family attended at a neighboring estate the previous evening? Quite a strong one it seems, when the victim is identified as the bride's first husband, long presumed dead. Eward Austen Knightly will have his work cut out for him as the local magistrate to sort out this mess and he begs Jane's aid. So much for her hopes of a quiet family visit in Kent to work on her current novel! A second gruesome death proves to be the unraveling point for the many threads tied into this knot of entangled lives and fortunes.
What I particularly enjoy about this series is Ms. Barrons' use of Jane Austen's actual correspondence to place Jane in the historically correct locale for each mystery. The characters in these novels are Jane herself, and her actual family, friends and social connections along with the fictional victims and villains. Since the stories are told in first person from Jane's perspective, employing the language and spelling of the period, it is sometimes hard to remember that you are not reading the real Jane's words. Jane and the Canterbury Tale kept me glued to my sofa (or should I say "sopha"?) to see what would happen next. What better way to lose one's self in a book? I can't think of a more satisfying one for a Jane Austen fan.
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