SENSE AND SECOND-DEGREE MURDER

This follow-up to Pride and Premeditation (2021) reimagines the intrepid Dashwood sisters tracking down leads about the murder of their father, who ran a detective firm.

After sensible Elinor, a budding chemist, discovers her father slumped over his desk, she, her mother, and her sisters, Marianne and Margaret, grieve his loss to an apparent heart attack. It is only later that they begin to suspect that his death might not have been natural, as they struggle with being forced from their home by their half brother, John, and his conniving wife, Fanny, to whom their father’s estate was left due to his failure to update his will. Maintaining the original’s setting, time period, and characters (both in regard to name and personality), this whodunit embellishes the storyline with a subplot involving the burgeoning use of opium both in medicine and recreationally. The plotting takes its time, wending its way around twists and turns that will be more obvious to readers who know Sense and Sensibility, but the sympathetic nature of both the elder Dashwood sisters should keep both existing fans and newcomers sufficiently in their corner. Likewise, the neat resolution of this tale will satisfy those with a taste for happy endings and the comfort of the familiar, even if it’s not particularly memorable. All characters are White.

A light, mostly engaging mystery that will find a ready audience among Jane Austen fans.