Jane and the Canterbury Tale by Stephanie Barron

     Clever, clever Stephanie Barron. I am always so tickled (and impressed) by how she weaves her fictional events among the actual threads of Jane Austen's life. Amazing! It gives the books a sense of verisimilitude that is missing from many Jane-ish spin offs.

     We don't know a whole lot about Jane Austen, actually, so it's very entertaining to see Barron's Jane come to life. She seems consistent with what I imagine Jane Austen might have been like--if I suspend reality long enough to imagine that a Regency-period lady would have dabbled in murder and detecting. Well, maybe not. So I guess Barron's Jane Austen is about as far from (or near to) the "real" Jane Austen as anyone else's guess of what that lady was like.

     In any case, this series is clever and delightful, sprinkled with quotations from the Austen canon and filled with our main character's witty voice and sweet relationships with family.

     In this one, our Jane is spending some time with her brother Edward Knight, First Magistrate for Canterbury, and his family--including her favorite niece, Fanny Knight. Unfortunately (or fortunately for we  the readers) a murder takes place--the scruffy and scandalous Curzon Fiske is killed on Pilgrim's Way. This case cuts deep into the neighborhood and Edward is grateful for Jane's help in discovering who had a motive for not only this crime, but also the evil deeds that follow.

     An entertaining and rather literary book! I really enjoyed it!