Pride, prejudice & poison

In the small North Yorkshire town of Kirbymoorside, the local Jane Austen Society is divided into camps those looking to keep things as they are, and those wishing for change. After a contentious meeting, the not-always-popular president, Sylvia Pemberthy, falls dead at the refreshment table at the back of the parish hall, poisoned by her tea. When her friend, who was serving the tea, is accused, Erin Coleridge (yes, a distant relative of the poet), owner of a used-book store, can't leave the investigations to the two dashing detectives. She probes into the past lives of the other society members, unearthing multiple motives and putting herself at risk in the process. The author, who is also a poet, includes lyrical descriptions of the countryside. For Austen fans, the liberal scattering of Austen quotes and references will delight, but they do not detract from the flow. This is the first in a new series and the first by Carole Lawrence writing under a new pseudonym.--Karen Muller Copyright 2010 Booklist

All is not well in the Jane Austen Society in Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire, as shown by this winning series launch from Blake, a pseudonym of Carole Buggé (The Haunting of Torre Abbey). Tempers flare during a society meeting at the local church, and the society's newly elected president, Sylvia Pemberthy, soon turns up dead outside the church meeting hall. Suspects include Sylvia's husband and her lover. Then there's Kirkbymoorside's well-preserved aging siren, Hetty Miller, who regarded Sylvia as promiscuous. Meanwhile, Hetty's frumpy best friend, Prudence Pettibone, and Pru's doting husband, Winton, hope Pru will have a shot at the vacant presidency. Bookshop owner Erin Coleridge turns amateur sleuth, enlisting her offbeat friend, Farnsworth Appleby, in her investigation, along with 10-year-old Polly Marlowe. The village is rife with scandals and secrets, as well as both shocking and delightful romances. The reader doesn't have to recognize all the Austen references to appreciate this fine whodunit. Agent: Paige Wheeler, Creative Media. (Aug.)

Blake's first novel under this pseudonym is an uneasy mix of Jane Austen, small-town Yorkshire intrigue, and murder most foul.Although nobody much likes Sylvia Pemberthy, the loudmouthed current president of Kirkbymoorside's branch of the Jane Austen Society, everybody's duly surprised when she succumbs to a dose of arsenic during a tea break from an endearingly fractious meeting. DI Peter Hemming suspects Farnsworth Appleby, the tragic widow who served the fatal tea. But bookseller Erin Coleridge, certain that her friend would never have fed a fellow Austenite rat poison, resolves to do some snooping of her own. Her tactics include questioning the members of the JAS circle, eavesdropping, lying, huddling with Farnsworth to compare notes, passing herself off as a civilian consultant to the police, and boldly telling Hemming when he's wrong. The real story here is indicated when Erin, contemplating Hemming, "sense[s] something wounded deep inside him" and when Hemming, reflecting on his feelings for Erin, admits to himself, "every sensible instinct told him it was a bad idea." Throughout the dance of crime and detection, characters constantly one-up each other by dropping quotations from Austen. But although Erin sells several books and gives away several more, very little reading gets done because the cast members are too busy gossiping about each other, bickering with each other, and attempting to run each other's cars off the road. The steady drip of Austen tags sets an impossibly high bar for Blake's prose, and the revelations of the culprit and the motive beggar belief.Strictly for Austen fans with a high tolerance for archly obvious wit. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.