Erin Coleridge's used bookstore in Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire, England is a meeting place for the villagers and, in particular, for the local Jane Austen Society. At the Society's monthly meeting, matters come to a head between the old guard and its young turks. After the meeting breaks for tea, persuasion gives way to murder-with extreme prejudice-when president Sylvia Pemberthy falls dead to the floor. Poisoned? Presumably...but by whom? And...