JANE AND THE GENIUS OF THE PLACE

This fourth adventure, decorous yet spirited, for author/detective Jane Austen (Jane and the Wandering Eye, 1998, etc.) takes her to an international episode at the Canterbury Races, where she delivers herself of her trademark acidulous comments as Napoleon readies an armada against her homeland--and as the scarlet French bride Francoise Grey, who's already ensnared a social-climbing English banker, has the effrontery to be murdered practically under Jane's nose before disappearing into thin air.