Murder Most Persuasive

July 18, 2011
Kiely's well-paced if somewhat padded third contemporary mystery featuring Jane Austen fan Elizabeth Parker (after 2010's Murder on the Bride's Side) takes its inspiration from Persuasion. After the death of Elizabeth's wealthy 77-year-old uncle, Martin Reynolds, who battled cancer for years, a body is unearthed during pool renovations at a house Reynolds had owned on Maryland's Eastern Shore. To Elizabeth's horror, the remains turn out to belong to her cousin Ann's jilted fiancé, Michael Barrow, who had "the morals of a sewer rat" and disappeared with $1 million embezzled from Uncle Marty's business eight years earlier. But what did Michael do with the money? As Elizabeth searches for answers, family interactions occasionally obscure the story line. Janeites will enjoy tracking the parallels to Persuasion, though they might wish the author had stuck more closely to her model and done a better job developing some secondary characters.

August 1, 2011

Plucky amateur detective Elizabeth Parker investigates her third case of murder (Murder on the Bride's Side, 2010, etc.).

Elizabeth and her colorful Aunt Winnie reunite to exchange Jane Austen quotations at the funeral of Elizabeth's great uncle Martin. Martin's three daughters—practical Ann, stuffy Frances and glamorous Regina—are at peace with his death after a long illness, while Martin's widowed trophy wife Bonnie is histrionic. No sooner has Martin been laid to rest than the family receives a nasty shock: a dead body has been found at their former vacation home. The victim, buried eight years ago, is Michael Barrow, Regina's ex-fiancé and the heir apparent to Martin's business until a week after his disappearance, when his embezzlement was revealed. Bonnie decamps to a spa to recover, leaving Ann to sort through Martin's bequests. Elizabeth volunteers to help Ann, thereby extricating herself from her irritating sister's company and putting herself on the spot for the police investigation. The police work is complicated by Ann's old romance with the lead detective and by Michael's bad deeds, which gave far too many people motive to kill him. While Elizabeth's asking questions and drawing connections, the killer strikes again. No matter how annoying her family members can be, Elizabeth is determined to show that they're innocent, even if she has to risk her own life to do it.

Serviceable plot, stilted dialogue, one-dimensional characters—the lightest of beach reads.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

September 1, 2011

Jane Austen's Persuasion gets a contemporary twist in the third installment of Kiely's clever series (Murder at Longbourn). Promotional tie-in with the Jane Austen Society of North America.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2011
Elizabeth Parker returns for the third mystery in this smart series, armed with Austen quotes and looking for something to appease the boredom that stems from her dissatisfying job and traveling boyfriend. After Elizabeth's great-uncle dies, the new owners of his house find a body beneath the pool. It belongs to a man, formerly cousin Reggie's fianc', who embezzled a million dollars from the family business. The policeman who handled the embezzlement case is now investigating the murder, and he brings his own resentments toward the class-conscious Parker clan to his assessment of what happened, casting suspicion immediately on the family. Elizabeth's cousin Ann enlists her help in figuring out what really happened. Parker is an intelligent, funny character who squabbles with her sister in between finding clues. Kiely deftly develops her multidimensional characters, exposing layers of family secrets as she unravels the mystery. Fans of Stephanie Barron's Jane Austen mysteries will enjoy this contemporary cozy starring the Austen-obsessed Parker.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)