"I am now going to murder my sister."
Jane Austen wrote these chilling words over two centuries ago. History recorded it as a piece of harmless fiction.
LAPD detective Ann treats it as evidence.
Ann treats real life like a crime scene. When her sister Samantha ropes her into a seemingly playful Regency book-club investigation, Ann's detective instincts take over. She sees what the scholars missed for two hundred years: motive, means, and opportunity.
Using real historical documents, medical reports, Austen’s texts, along with modern forensic techniques, Ann uncovers a shocking trail of blackmail, forged wills, suppressed manuscripts, and symptoms that point toward arsenic poisoning. Cassandra did not burn Jane’s letters to protect her reputation. She burned them to protect someone else.
But exposing the greatest literary secret in history comes with a price. When Ann gets closer to the truth, she realizes someone in the present day is willing to do whatever it takes to keep it buried.
