Book Reviews: Death & Sensibility by Elizabeth Blake

 

The second book in the Jane Austen Society Mystery series. Erin Coleridge is excited to be in York for the Jane Austen Society conference. It's all fun and games until their speaker - Barry Wolf - winds up dead from an apparent heart attack. Only it's discovered later that he was poisoned. She turns to her friend Farnsworth - known by her cats named after Jane Austen characters - for help in investigating the murder. The killer, she knows, is one of the attendees at the conference but the clues lead her in circles, including suspicion on Barry's ex-wife and his current one. When a second victim is found dead, the mystery deepens and Erin finds herself stuck in the middle of the mystery - much to the disapproval of the handsome Detective Hemming. Find the series here.

"Crime-solving should never be done on an empty stomach." 

- Elizabeth Blake

REVIEW

Erin Coleridge is the classic cozy sleuth with a flirtation with a sexy detective, quirky friends, and a nosy attitude that creates her involvement in every murder she stumbles upon. The story is set against a backdrop of a literary society which is one of the several connections to literature that's prevalent throughout the story. The tone has been influenced by the love of Jane Austen, literature, the classics, and reading. The writing is stunning through the vivid descriptions Blake uses to set her scenes such as describing Winnifred through the gifts that Nature cruelly denied her and Jonathan Adler who Nature capriciously bestowed those gifts upon. Jonathan Adler is the classic seductive and charming gentlemen - who Erin can't help but be drawn to - and who receives high praise even in his description. The scene of him walking down the hall is compared to Moses parting the Red Sea at his will and how every woman fell under his spell "like enchanted fairy tale princesses." These are just two examples of the essence that genuinely reflects a classic literary style that's seen in Blake's writing. Even the names fit the world of Jane Austen with Farnsworth, Prudence Pettibone - fervent and competitive about Austen knowledge -, Carolyn Hardacre and her husband Owen, Hetty Miller, Jonathan Adler, Barry Wolf - the victim -, and Winnifred Hogsworthy. 

Erin and her boyfriend have a delicate dance as he's a detective and she - as a sleuth - tends to be nosy in murderous affairs. This tends to create a conflict between them that goes further than his moody standoffish nature at times. Other characters include Sergeant Rashid Jarral who as Hemming's easygoing partner creates an opposite to him. While Hemming is described as the classic moody and intense love interest, his partner is described as being good-natured and trusting. The mystery sends Erin on a hunt for a killer among them with the help of her friend Farnsworth and the Jane Austen Society. The twists and turns create a mystery that is addicting with Death & Sensibility delivering the perfect treat for book lovers.