Jane and the Stillroom Maid: Being the Fifth Jane Austen Mystery - Hardcover

Barron, Stephanie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0553107348 ISBN 13: 9780553107340

Publisher: Bantam, 2000

Synopsis

Jane Austen as sleuth continues to delight in her latest adventure (after Jane and the Genius of the Place), which sheds new light on the author's travels in 1806. While enjoying a ramble in the Derbyshire hills near Bakewell (a town Eliza Bennett visits in Pride and Prejudice), Jane discovers the mutilated body of a young man. Jane's suspicions are roused when her escort, Mr. George Hemming, prefers to remove the unidentified corpse to Buxton, rather than Bakewell, and they increase when the body proves to be that of a woman dressed in men's clothing. Moreover, the corpse is identified as Tess Arnold, a servant at one of the area's great houses, whom Mr. Hemming should have recognized. As the compounder of stillroom remedies, Tess had a reputation as a healer, until accused of witchcraft. Rumors of ritual murder by Freemasons-who include most of the neighboring gentry-excite the local populace and jeopardize the investigation of the justice of the peace, himself a Mason. When Mr. Hemming disappears before the inquest, Jane and the justice turn for help to Lord Harold Trowbridge, a guest at the nearby ducal house of Chatsworth. Barron catches Austen's tone amazingly well. Details of early 19th-century country life of all classes ring true, while the story line is clear, yet full of surprises. The "editor's notes" that punctuate the text and old cures for various ills that open each chapter add to the charm. (Aug.)

About this title

From the Publisher:

6 1.5-hour cassettes

From the Back Cover:

"Jane Austen as sleuth continues to delight."
-- Publishers Weekly

"This fifth Jane Austen detection gets ... my Best in Series vote."
-- Booknews from The Poisoned Pen

"Another first-rate addition to the series."
-- The Christian Science Monitor

"Barron does a wonderful job of evoking the great British estates and the woes of spinsters living in that era ... often echoing the rhythms of the Austen novels with uncanny ease."
-- Entertainment Weekly


Don't miss Jane Austen's other superb forays into detection:

Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor
Being the First Jane Austen Mystery

Jane and the Man of the Cloth
Being the Second Jane Austen Mystery

Jane and the Wandering Eye
Being the Third Jane Austen Mystery

Jane and the Genius of the Place
Being the Fourth Jane Austen Mystery

And coming soon in hardcover:

Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House
Being the Sixth Jane Austen Mystery

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0553107348
• ISBN 13: 9780553107340
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288