This is the seventh of the Jane Austen as detective series written by Stephanie Barron, though it is only subtitled as: Being a Jane Austen Mystery. This one also involves Lord Harold Trowbridge, as several others do. And this one comes very close to a real romance, which I’m sure is / was a great relief to most of us.
Rather more violence than usual in these books – and to me all the characters seemed drawn even more strongly than usual. The Napoleonic Wars were still going on, and there had been bitter battles in Portugal. Many of the book’s characters had ties to Portugal, spies and counterspies among them. Several key and wonderful characters are lost in this book – just a trigger warning!
It is very exciting, and includes a lot that you might want to know about how duels were actually carried out. As always, an excellent book.