Jane Austen-quoting sleuth Elizabeth Parker faces the mystery of the murdered aunt in the second novel in the Tracy Kiely mystery series, inspired by Sense and Sensibility
Rating: 4 stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
“Since I’d paralleled some of Jane Austen’s themes in Pride and Prejudice for my first book, Murder at Longbourn, I decided to focus on Sense and Sensibility for the second book,” says Murder on the Bride’s Side author Tracy Kiely. “I picked the backdrop of a wedding because they always seem to bring out the worst tensions in a family. Weddings are like Thanksgiving on steroids…and with a band.”
Elizabeth Parker, the Jane Austen-quoting sleuth, faces another mystery in Tracy Kiely’s second novel in her series. Kiely writes engaging characters. Set in Richmond, Viriginia, it’s the day after Elizabeth’s best friend Bridget’s wedding. The bride’s nasty Aunt Roni is found with a knife in her ribs. The police believe the killer has Roni’s missing necklace. When that’s found in Elizabeth’s room, the police focus their investigation on her. When Elizabeth gets nervous she looks to Jane Austen’s heroines, this time her inspiration is Elinor Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility. How will Elizabeth clear her name and find the real killer?
“I grew up reading Agatha Christie, Jane Austen and watching Hitchcock movies,” says Kiely. “Can you say Anglophile? I wanted to create books that combined Christie’s twisty plots, Austen’s wit and Hitchcock’s theme of the ordinary man caught up in extraordinary circumstances. Since I grew up in Virginia where my mother was a historian, I decided to set this book in Richmond.”
Kiely borrowed her mother’s copy of Virginia Plantation Homes, a book of photos of beautiful homes, as her inspiration for the elegant location of the murder.
Kiely says she found her agent through, “prayer, dumb luck and www.agentquery.com.” Kiely’s agent is Barbara Poelle of the Irene Goodman Agency.
“Tracy still holds the record as my fastest sale,” says agent Barbara Poelle. “It took something like four days from my initial round of submissions before Toni Plummer at St. Martins preempted the series, squeaking out another editor who still asks about the series to this day. I met Tracy Kiely through the slush. I thought she was a fabulous combination of Agatha Christie meets Jane Austen.”
Murder on the Bride’s Side hasn’t been optioned for film or television.
Kiely was born in Washington, D.C. She currently lives outside Annapolis, Maryland.
She’s finishing her third book in the series: What’s Past is Murder. This book parallels Jane Austen’s Persuasion and is set in Georgetown, D.C. Kiely’s website is tracykielymysteries.com.
Murder on the Bride’s Side by Tracy Kiely. Hardcover; 304 pages, Publisher: Minotaur Books (August 31, 2010), Language: English. ISBN: 9780312537579 $24.99
