Jane and the Waterloo Map by Stephanie Barron

Jane and the Waterloo Map: Being a Jane Austen Mystery by Stephanie Barron --- 312 pages

The thirteenth novel in Barron's tour de force mystery series in which Barron has created not only a delightful series of mysteries but has interwoven them seamlessly into the known fabric of Austen's life as well as the historic events of the period. Moreover she does so in elegant and witty prose that is nearly indistinguishable from Austen's own.

In 1815 Jane has traveled to London to care for her beloved brother Henry, made ill by the stress of his failing banking business during the financial crisis following the Battle of Waterloo. She has also come to find a publisher willing to give her better terms for her new novel, Emma.  Much to Jane's surprise the pompous Reverend Mr. Clarke, histiographer to HRH the Prince Regent, invites her to visit Carlton House, the Prince's lavish London residence. There, to her chagrin, he announces that the Prince would be pleased to allow her to dedicate her next book in his honor.  As Jane, like all her family, despises the dissolute Prince Regent, she is underwelmed by the favor of the Royal notice.

However, during her tour of Carlton House, Jane discovers Colonel Ewan MacFarland, a hero of Waterloo, suffering what appears to be an apoplectic fit, sprawled on the floor of the Regent's library. His last, cryptic words, spoken to Jane, are "Waterloo map." The next day she learns that the Colonel has died, and from evidence she found at the scene, Jane suspects his death was contrived.

She shares her suspicions with the Prince Regent's physician, Matthew Baillie, and Mr. Raphael West, sone of the celebrated painter Benjamin West, and an artist in his own right, as well as one of a select group of secret agents working for the British government. West and Jane have solved on mystery together (in Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas, the book immediately preceding this in Barron's series) and are quietly but powerfully attracted to each other. The two of them set out to discover who is responsible for Colonel MacFarland's death, and what is the import of the words "Waterloo map?"

A wonderful series for fans of Jan Austen, the Regency period, and historical mysteries.

Click HERE for the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE for a review from mystery novelist Dana Stabenow.

Click HERE for a review from the Jane Austen fan blog austenprose. com.

Went the Day Well? by David Crane

Went the Day Well? Witnessing Waterloo by David Crane --- 366 pages including End Notes, Bibliography and Index

June 18, 2015 will mark the bicentennial of the Battle of Waterloo, and a number of books have been published to mark this watershed event in European history.

One of the most interesting is David Crane's Went Well the Day? in which the author chooses to examine the political, social, economic and cultural environment of Britain during the long years of the Napoleonic Wars that culminated in the victory at Waterloo.

He accomplishes this with a series of vignettes, linked hour by hour with the events of the battle on the 18th of June, that reveal the hypocrisy, brutality, corruption and injustice that festered during those long years when Britain's ruling class was fixated on the necessity of preserving their privileges from the revolutionary tide that had engulfed France and produced Napoleon. These are all the more glaring in contrast to the stories Crane presents of individual courage and endurance on the battlefield.

A fascinating look at the reality of life behind the glittering facade of the Regency period.

Click HERE to read a review from the Spectator.

Click HERE to read a review from the New York Times.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies, and Three Battles by Bernard Cornwall

Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies, and Three Battles by Bernard Cornwall --- 352 pages, including Acknowledgements, Bibliography and Index

June 18, 2015 will be the bicentennial of the Battle of Waterloo, that watershed event in British and European history, when the Duke of Wellington and his Prussian ally, Marshall von Blücher, defeated Napoleon's comeback bid. 

Cornwall, a noted British author of military historical fiction, puts his formidable writing skills to the task of organizing a coherent account of one of the most complicated battles on record; complicated by the tactics and confusions that concentrated an enormous number of combatants into a constricted and difficult terrain. One survivor of that hellish day later wrote that he began to think that no one on either side would live to know who had prevailed.

Click HERE to read a review from the Spectator.
Click HERE to read a review from the Economist.