I was looking for new mystery detective fiction, having read all of the Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, Dorothy Sayers, and Erle Stanley Gardner that I could find, as well as many more in the genre. A friend suggested the Jane Austen Mysteries by Stephanie Barron. I looked for the first book in the series, Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, but my library didn’t have it on the shelf. So I just picked one that sounded interesting and thus read Jane and the Year Without a Summer, set in the summer of 1816 when “the eruption of Mount Tambora in the South Pacific caused a volcanic winter that shrouded the entire planet for sixteen months.” (Climate change, indeed!)

The real Jane Austen died in 1817 at the age of 41, so this book portrays a fictional Jane well toward the end of her short life. Jane is feeling unwell with chronic fatigue and stomach upset, and she and her sister Cassandra decide to sample the waters at Cheltenham Spa in Gloucestershire. These books are said to be “based on the author’s examination of Austen’s letters and writings along with extensive biographical information.” But of course, a mystery is inserted into the biographical story to spice things up a bit.

In this particular book, the mystery involves a several of the Misses Austen’s fellow boarders at the lodging house in Cheltenham where they are staying. The actual murder (or unexplained death) doesn’t happen until about three quarters of the way through the book, but the atmosphere and setting that the author creates makes up for the lack of action in the first half of the book. The characters, aside from Jane herself, are somewhat one-dimensional, and the mystery and resolution there of require some suspension of disbelief. Why and how the murderer does the deed is a bit unlikely. Nevertheless, the Regency setting with period details and information about the real Jane Austen’s life and times is, as Jane might say, quite enjoyable.

I liked it well enough to seek out another book in the series, preferably the first, and maybe I’ll read them them all. Stephanie Barron has written fifteen of these books with Jane as the sleuth and protagonist, and the fifteenth one is called Jane and the Final Mystery. So I assume the series is complete. It might be a nice adventure to travel through all fifteen.