“A Jane Austen Encounter” by Donna Fletcher Crow

If you like Jane Austen, and if you like a mystery, then I have a book for you: A Jane Austen Encounter by Donna Fletcher Crow.

Crow is the author of some 50 books, mostly novels about British history. In addition to “The Monastery Murders” series, she has three novels in the Lord Danvers series, A Most Inconvenient Death, Grave Matters, and To Dust You Shall Return. The Elizabeth & Richard series, of which A Jane Austen Encounter is the fourth, features a husband-and-wife team who teach university English. Crow is an American (she lives in Idaho), but she knows her English literature. And she’s a life member of The Jane Austen Society. 

And her knowledge of Jane Austen’s life and books, both published and the unpublished partial manuscripts, saturates this mystery tale. 

Richard and Elizabeth Spenser are on something of a second honeymoon. Richard has taken a sabbatical from his university teaching; Elizabeth is officially a professor emeritus, which means partially retired and teaching only occasional classes. They have come to Bath in England to begin a tour of Jane Austen country and books, led by a rather dominating and loud British professor named Muriel Greystoke. In addition to the Spensers, the group is comprised of several people associated with Muriel – assistants, drivers, graduate students, her publisher, and even a local newspaper reporter.

Donna Fletcher Crow

Richard is trying to determine an appropriate topic for sabbatical research: Elizabeth is simply enjoying the trip. He helps one assistant find what looks to be a letter written by a relative of Austen’s, and then an assistant is attacked and the letter stolen. The Spensers find themselves being followed by a man who claims to be a reporter but clearly isn’t. Elizabeth’s purse is stolen. And then Muriel slips in a fall and is later found dead under a collapsed weighty bookcase. It looks like an accident, but it might be murder.

The mystery develops side by side with rather detailed descriptions of the towns, cities, houses, and fields associated with Jane Austen and her family, from Bath to Winchester and Canterbury. And like any academics who know their stuff, Richard and Elizabeth talk extensively about the Austen books and manuscripts, envisioning places where various characters meet and interact. And, somehow, they still find time to solve the mystery.

It’s all great fun, and Jane Austen fans should find it to be a treat. If you’re not a fan, you will learn a lot about Emma, Persuasion, the other books, the various manuscripts, and the stories of Jane, her parents, and her brothers and sisters.

"A Darkly Hidden Truth" by Donna Fletcher Crow

American Felicity Howard is studying at a seminary in England. What she’s actually considering is becoming a nun, and a spiritual advisor suggests that she visit a number of houses and convents before she definitely makes up her mind. She’s also attracted to fellow ordinand Father Antony Sherwood, and she keeps trying to suppress that attraction because, well, she wants to be a nun. And sooner rather than later.

Then an icon goes missing from the chapel. A good friend of both Felicity and Antony and a fellow ordinand, Neville Montara, seems connected to the theft. Felicity begins her visits to various religious houses and orders, and another icon goes missing, with Neville in the vicinity. Neville himself disappears, until he calls Antony and asks for a meeting at a ruined abbey in the Broads, the famous marshy area near Norfolk. Antony and Felicity arrive at the abbey, and they find Neville’s body. He’s been murdered. 

Because Antony has been asked by his superior to try to retrieve the missing icon as quietly as possible, he and Felicity being their own investigation, apart from the police. Their search takes them to the Temple church in London, sites in London and elsewhere connected to the Knights Templar, and back to the Norfolk area. The main clue is a peculiar kind of drawn cross with various emblems. Complicating their search is Felicity’s mother, to whom Felicity has never been close. She’s arrived from the States to announce her impending divorce from Felicity’s father and that she’s considering a legal job in London.

Donna Fletcher Crow

A Darkly Hidden Truth by Donna Fletcher Crow is the second book in “The Monastery Murders” series. It is part thrilling mystery, part historical religious travelogue, part romance, and part religious history – the reader is treated to a number of readings from Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe.

Crow is the author of some 50 books, mostly novels about British history. In addition to “The Monastery Murders” series, she has three novels in the Lord Danvers series, A Most Inconvenient Death, Grave Matters, and To Dust You Shall Return.

Felicity and Antony will face their own personal dangers during the investigation – kidnapping, attacks, and a push down an escalator on the London Underground. They’ll also have to come to grips with their feelings for each other. A Darkly Hidden Truth is a satisfying mystery filled with twists, turns, considerable information about icons, and a nice dash of romance.

Related:

My review of A Newly Crimsoned Reliquary by Donna Fletcher Crow.

"A Newly Crimsoned Reliquary" by Donna Fletcher Crow

Felicity Howard arrives in Oxford, hired by the Sisters of the Love of God to translate an old manuscript they’ve been given. The manuscript is in early Latin, and it’s an account of the life of St. Frideswide, the patron saint of Oxford who founded a monastery from which the city grew.

In a few days, Felicity will be followed by her fiancée, Father Antony Sherwood, who’s leading a group of men and women in training for a ministry vocation (Felicity herself is one of them). She will first meet with Sister Monica, the mother superior, and be working closely with a nun the order’s publications office.

Sister Monica is supposed to returning from a conference in Canterbury. The nuns find out that Sister Monica never arrived in Canterbury. She’s officially missing. During a church service, Felicity looks at a reliquary that is supposed to be holding the hand of a saint. The problem is that the hand looks a little too contemporary. And then a foot is found in a reliquary on display at the Ashmolean Museum, and Sister Monica’s body not too long after in a river.

Then, A Newly Crimsoned Reliquary by Donna Fletcher Crow begins taking even wilder turns. It’s clear that someone wants the manuscript Felicity is working on and will stop at nothing to get it. And it’s not clear why the manuscript is so important, or what it does or doesn’t contain that leads someone to kill.

This is a story that has to be read closely to follow all of the plots and sub-plots. There’s the relationship between Felicity and Antony, Antony’s relationships with his sister and the aunt and uncle who raised them, romance among the people in the group in ministry training, occasionally a confusing shift in viewpoint from Felicity to Antony and back again, a few side trails into medieval times, and even some critical scenes involving the ringing of the church bells at St. Mary Magdalene. It can be a lot to keep track of.

Donna Fletcher Crow

Crow is the author of some 50 books, mostly novels about British history. She has three novels in the Lord Danvers series, A Most Inconvenient Death, Grave Matters, and To Dust You Shall Return, and a second mystery novel series under the theme of “The Monastery Murders,” of which A Newly Crimsoned Reliquary is the fourth.

A Newly Crimsoned Reliquary is an intriguing story with an interesting premise. It’s full of references to the city of Oxford, its streets, its colleges, and some of its famous landmarks, and Crow does well to include them. Oxford itself, in fact, emerges as a kind of major character, and helps to hold the story and side stories together.

Related:

My review of A Most Inconvenient Death by Donna Fletcher Crow.

Top photograph: the bell tower of Christ College Cathedral in Oxford.

“A Most Inconvenient Death” by Donna Fletcher Crow

It is 1847. Charles Leighton, Viscount Danvers, is at the Ketteringham estate of Sir John Boileau, helping to celebrate the coming of age of Sir John’s son and heir, Jack. It’s quite a gathering, including a duchess and several other titled people. Then, at nearby Stanfield Hall, two members of the Jermy family are murdered by masked men with guns. Boileau, as county magistrate, must investigate, and Leighton helps him.

Suspicions quickly center on a farmer, James Rush. But Leighton isn’t convinced, even if Sir John and the police are. He knows that several people owed money to the Jermys, including Sir John’s son Jack. And Leighton saw Jack leaving with a rifle shortly before the murders occurred.

The investigation of the murders frames the narrative of A Most Inconvenient Death by Donna Fletcher Crow. It’s a Victorian period mystery story that includes a troubled hero (Leighton is still mourning the woman he was to marry), air balloon rides, long English celebrations at country houses that we associate with the 19^th century, a wonderful dowager duchess who might give Maggie Smith some serious competition on Downton Abbey, and even a spot of romance.

Donna Fletcher Crow

Crow is the author of some 50 books, mostly novels about British history. She has two other novels in the Lord Danvers series, Grave Matters and To Dust You Shall Return, and a second mystery novel series under the theme of The Monastery Murders.  A Most Inconvenient Death was originally published in 1993 and republished in 2011 and 2017. Crow lives in Idaho.

The delightful thing about historical mysteries is that they’re never really dated. A Most Inconvenient Death is a Victorian era whodunit involving rich and poor, titled and common, money and debt, constant guessing as to whom the killer (or killers) might be, and one wild climactic ending.

Top photograph: the type of clothing style Lord Danvers would have worn in the 1840s. Courtesy the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.