Jane and the Waterloo Map

Starred review from December 7, 2015
A well-crafted narrative with multiple subplots drives Barron’s splendid 13th Jane Austen mystery (following 2014’s Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas). In November 1815, Jane comes to London to attend to her favorite brother, Henry, who has fallen ill and is on the verge of bankruptcy. While she awaits the proofs of Emma, she receives an invitation to Carlton House, the Prince Regent’s London mansion, where she finds Col. Ewan McFarland, a hero of Waterloo, horribly sick on the floor of the library. Just before he expires, the colonel utters, “Waterloo map.” From evidence at the scene, Jane determines that he was poisoned. Jane joins forces with Raphael West, a painter who’s also a government spy, in pursuit of a ruthless killer and the meaning of the colonel’s cryptic last words. Series fans will be happy to see more of Jane’s extended family and friends, and Austenites will enjoy the imaginative power with which Barron spins another riveting mystery around a writer generally assumed to have led a quiet and uneventful life. Agent: Rafe Sagalyn, ICM Partners/Sagalyn.

December 1, 2015
A royal summons embroils veteran Regency sleuth Jane Austen. Jane's come to London to negotiate the publication of her next novel and stays to nurse her brother Henry as he recovers from a near-fatal fever. His Highness the Prince Regent's own court physician, Matthew Baillie, helped save Henry's life, and when word gets back to HRH of Jane's stay in London, he bids her come work in the library at Carlton House. One doesn't decline a prince's invitation, but Jane gets no chance to write. Instead, she discovers Col. Ewan MacFarland twitching and retching on the library floor. She wipes his lips with her handkerchief, and he utters the words "Waterloo map" and dies. When Jane examines the handkerchief, she discovers fine evergreen needles in traces of his vomit; her brother's personal physician suggests they might be needles of the poisonous yew. She returns to Carlton House to find a watercolor map that MacFarland hid in a book in the royal library just before he was stricken. On the back of the map is a man's last words to his beloved, with a numerical cipher and instructions to guard the map because the emperor will have need of it. Although it won't do Napoleon much good in his exile after Waterloo, someone values the map enough to attack Jane and stab Dr. Baillie nearly to death. Jane can think of only one man to trust with the map: the artist Benjamin West's son, Raphael, who is also an artist and a spy for the government. The race is on to break the map's code before whoever has already been desperate to kill for it can seize it by any means necessary. Barron, who's picked up the pace since Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas (2014), portrays an even more seasoned and unflinching heroine in the face of nasty death and her own peril.

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December 1, 2015

This latest delightful Jane Austen whodunit (after Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas) finds the author and sometime sleuth in London on the eve of her 40th birthday tending to her convalescing brother, Henry. A diversion arrives with HRH the Prince Regent's invitation to tour his private library, but the serenity of the bookish setting is shattered by Jane's discovery of a poisoned soldier choking out the words "Waterloo map." Col. Ewan MacFarland was a hero of that recent battle, and Jane soon finds the map tucked within a library shelf. That sends her on the hunt for MacFarland's killer and the provenance of the sketch, a pursuit that reunites her with dashing painter Raphael West and threatens to put them both in mortal danger. VERDICT As usual, Barron deftly imitates Austen's voice, wit, and occasional melancholy while spinning a well-researched plot that will please historical mystery readers and Janeites everywhere. Jane Austen died two years after the events of Waterloo; one hopes that Barron conjures a few more adventures for her beloved protagonist before historical fact suspends her fiction.--Annabelle Mortensen, Skokie P.L., IL

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2015
The Napoleonic Wars have finally ended, and the soldiers have come home. In November 1815, Jane Austen is in London, nursing her brother Henry while she awaits the galleys for Emma. Henry's doctor arranges an invitation for Jane to visit the library of the Prince Regent at Carlton House. As the royal librarian, James Stanier Clarke, shows her around, they discover Colonel MacFarland, a hero at Waterloo, gasping for life. They call for a doctor, as Jane comforts the colonel, hearing his last words, Waterloo map. Later, she finds poisonous yew needles on her handkerchief and convinces Dr. Baillie to do an autopsy. Together Jane and Dr. Baillie return to the library and find the map. Later, both Jane and the doctor are attacked, prompting them to launch their own investigation, pursuing slim leads concerning the map's creator and its importance. Writing in the form of Jane's diaries, Barron has spun a credible tale from a true encounter, enhanced with meticulous research and use of period vocabulary, such as anatomization for autopsy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2016

In her next mystery, Jane Austen is touring the London home of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent at the invitation of the prince's chaplain, who horrifies her by hinting that she dedicate her next novel to his employer. (She's not a fan.) Fortunately, they are distracted by stumbling upon a sprawled-out cavalry hero whose dying words are "Waterloo map."

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.