Jane and the prisoner of Wool House

0

0

Barron, Stephanie, 1950-

Barron, Stephanie

Cary Regional
North Regional

Mystery

Cary Regional - Mystery
Eva H. Perry Regional - Mystery
North Regional - Mystery
Remote Storage - Mystery

In her sixth engrossing outing, Jane Austen employs her delicious wit and family ties to the Royal Navy in a case of murder on the high seas. Somewhere in the picturesque British port of Southampton, among a crew of colorful, eccentric, and fiercely individual souls, a killer has come ashore. And only Jane can fathom the depths of his ruthless mind. . . "I will assert that sailors are endowed with greater worth than any set of men in England." So muses Jane Austen as she stands in the buffeting wind of Southampton's quay beside her brother Frank on a raw February morning. Frank, a post captain in the Royal Navy, is without a ship to command, and his best prospect is the Stella Maris, a fast frigate captained by his old friend Tom Seagrave. "Lucky" Tom -- so dubbed for his habit of besting enemy ships -- is presently in disgrace, charged with violating the Articles of War. Tom's first lieutenant, Eustace Chessyre, has accused Seagrave of murder in the death of a French captain after the surrender of his ship. Though Lucky Tom denies the charge, his dagger was found in the dead man's chest. Now Seagrave faces court-martial and execution for a crime he swears he did not commit. Frank, deeply grieved, is certain his friend will hang. But Jane reasons that either Seagrave or Chessyre is lying -- and that she and Frank have a duty to discover the truth. The search for the captain's honor carries them into the troubled heart of Seagrave's family, through some of the seaport's worst sinkholes, and at long last to Wool House, the barred brick structure that serves as gaol for French prisoners of war. Risking contagion or worse, Jane agrees to nurse the murdered French captain's imprisoned crew -- and elicits a debonair surgeon's account of the Stella Maris's battle that appears to clear Tom Seagrave of all guilt. When Eustace Chessyre is found murdered, the entire affair takes on the appearance of an insidious plot against Seagrave, who is charged with the crime. Could any of his naval colleagues wish him dead? In an era of turbulent intrigue and contested amour, could it be a case of cherchez la femme. . . or a veiled political foe at work? And what of the sealed orders under which Seagrave embarked that fateful night in the Stella Maris? Death knocks again at Jane's own door before the final knots in the killer's net are completely untangled.

Book

Books

147cde90-2e41-324d-fabd-04465fa95bcb

9780553107357
9780553578409

2025-07-12T09:13:58.496Z

-1

Fiction

Fiction

BARRON

Wake County Public Libraries

Cary Regional
Eva H. Perry Regional
North Regional

9780553578409

2001

Bantam Books

grouped_work

Jane Austen mysteries (Stephanie Barron)

Jane Austen mysteries (Stephanie Barron)|6

Austen, Jane, -- 1775-1817 -- Fiction
Historical fiction
Mystery fiction
Portsmouth (England) -- Fiction
Women novelists -- Fiction

Jane and the prisoner of Wool House

Jane and the prisoner of Wool House / by Stephanie Barron

Jane and the prisoner of Wool House

Austen, Jane
Women novelists