When Elinor Dashwood went into her father’s study and found him slumped over his desk, she had no idea just how much her life would change. She was devastated, of course, as were her mother and her sisters Marianne and Margaret. But when she went back into his office to clear his things and found his tea cup, Elinor realizes that he may have been poisoned.
Their father was a private investigator, having built his Norland & Company up from scratch. He had been training teenaged Marianne in investigating, while Elinor was more interested in chemistry. The youngest sister, Margaret, was a reader and aspiring writer. The three of them team up to try to figure out who had poisoned their father, but without their father’s journal, with all his notes on his recent cases, the sisters don’t have many clues.
And while dealing with the grief from losing their father, they also lose their home. Their father had not made a recent will, so everything he owned went to his son John instead of to the young women. With just a small inheritance and the money their mother has, they have to find a place where the four women can live. Their mother talks to an old friend about their situation and is able to find a small place they can afford. Meanwhile, John and his wife Franny take over their old home and Franny redecorates it in her gaudy style.
Elinor tries to do some experiments with the remains of her father’s tea cup, but she can only do so much without a proper laboratory. And Marianne tries to figure out what her father had been working on, but when she almost gets run down in the street, she is rescued by Mr. Willoughby, and eventually asks him for help getting around town. He proves himself more than capable of keeping up with Marianne and her investigating. But how does she know for certain that she can trust him?
As the sisters find evidence and try to figure out how it fits together, they find themselves in increasing amounts of danger. The Dashwoods may be on the right track, but will they be able to put all the pieces together before the killer strikes again?
Tirzah Price is back with Sense and Second-Degree Murder, the second in her Jane Austen Mystery series. This one is based on Sense and Sensibility, taking liberties with the original story to tackle contemporary issues like women’s equality and the use of dangerous painkillers. The blend of Jane Austen and contemporary ideas elevates this murder mystery into an entertaining and interesting story.
I enjoyed Sense and Second-Degree Murder. It brought back lovely memories of reading the original Austen while still feeling modern. I have always like the Dashwood sisters, and I felt this was a lovely homage to those original characters, staying true to each sister’s character. However, creating an adaptation with characters that are so well known means that readers of Austen could immediately identify who the good guys and the bad guys were, no matter how much Price tried to muddy those waters with gossip and lies. Still, I enjoyed the story and found myself falling in love with the same characters as when I read Sense and Sensibility.
Voice galleys for Sense and Second-Degree Murder were provided by Harper Audio through NetGalley, with many thanks.
