The Incredible Crime

May 15, 2017
The bland title doesn’t capture the liveliness or wit of this well-plotted cozy, first published in 1931, by Austen-Leigh (1883–1968), Jane Austen’s great-great-niece. Prudence Pinsent, the independent single daughter of the master of Cambridge University’s fictional Prince’s College, lives amid academics, including her distant cousin, toxicologist and poisons expert Francis Temple. Just before making a visit to the country, Prudence learns that a destructive new drug is being smuggled into the area and that both Cambridge University and Wellende Old Hall, her destination, are suspected distribution points. Initially skeptical, she becomes sure that something is amiss at the remote coastal home of the unpretentious Lord Wellende. Its fabled ghost has grown suddenly noisy, two senior men from Scotland Yard make ostensibly social visits, and Lord Wellende falls ill immediately after Francis unexpectedly ends their long-standing estrangement. This British Library Crime Classics reissue features richly evocative settings, an appealing romantic subplot, and sly nods to other fiction, including that of the author’s illustrious ancestor.

April 1, 2017
Miss Prudence Pinsent, daughter of the master of Prince's College at Cambridge, epitomizes her time and place in this first mystery by Jane Austen's great-great-niece, originally published in 1931 and now reissued for the first time.Prudence has tea with the faculty wives and serves as hostess when her father entertains the Cambridge dons, but she's far too fond of her independence to marry. When the college fellows become too tiresome, she heads to Wellende Hall, where her cousin Ben, Lord Wellende, lives for hunting and sport. On her way to Suffolk, she stops for lunch at a country inn, where she spots Harry Studde, an old childhood friend. Capt. Studde is now an Inspector of the Coast Watchers, and in this capacity he's noticed clear signs of smuggling through Wellende Hall. The family and their tenants have been smugglers for centuries--a boat can run from the coast up the river right into the cellars of Wellende Hall--but this smuggling is nastier stuff: an addictive new drug known only as X.Y.X. What's worse is that someone in Cambridge is distributing the drug throughout the country. How many of Prudence's family and friends may be caught up in this wretched business? While the mystery is slight, the vivid evocation of a fox hunt, the disconcertingly pre-feminist courtship, and the placid conviction that blood will tell make for fascinating period detail of a world mystery lovers all too often see only through the lens of imaginative hindsight. Recommended to all mystery fans.

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May 1, 2017
A somewhat vinegary heroine, who leads a life of wealth and privilege during the Depression, is the link in this mystery (originally published in 1931) between three seductive settings: Cambridge College, a magnificent stately home, and the complex warren of waterways and wetlands on the Suffolk coast. Prudence Pinsent, the much-indulged daughter of the master of Prince's College, is called away from the roiling conflicts among Cambridge dons to a country-house party. On her way, she runs into a childhood friend, now a captain in the Coast Guard, who is investigating drug smuggling into and out of Cambridge. He recruits the well-connected Prudence to help uncover the Cambridge connection. The characterizations are superficial, and the plot awkwardly constructed, with Prudence being a too-obvious and coincidental link between the various worlds. But Austen-Leigh, the great-great niece of Jane Austen who is said to have used Aunt Jane's writing desk to write four mysteries, provides fascinating details of what British high life was like at the time. Part of the British Library Crime Classics series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)