Jane and the Final Mystery

Starred review from August 14, 2023
Barron’s poignant 15th and final whodunit featuring Jane Austen as a sleuth (after 2022’s Jane and the Year Without a Summer) is set in 1817, the year of the author’s death. Suffering from an unknown ailment and determined not to brood on the ravages of her declining health, Jane agrees to investigate the case of 16-year-old Winchester College student William Heathcote, a friend of her nephew, Edward. Relentlessly mocked at school because of his stutter, William stands accused of knocking his chief tormentor, Arthur Pendergast, on the head and sending him into a canal where he drowned. Another student swears Arthur intended to expose William’s illicit alliance with a local girl and William killed him to protect the lady’s reputation. To make matters worse, William refuses to reveal his whereabouts on the day Arthur died. Jane’s investigation uncovers a dark plot to frame William and foment rebellion at the school. Barron expertly underscores the purposeful cruelty and classism of English public schools in Austen’s time, which existed strictly to harden the future leaders of the Empire, and elicits deep emotion out of Jane’s struggles against her own mortality. This is a fitting send-off for a beautifully realized series. Agent: Rafe Sagalyn, ICM Partners.