When Jane Austen dies at the age of just 41, Anne, governess to her brother, Edward Austen, is devastated and begins to suspect that someone might have wanted her out of the way. Now, 20 years on, she hopes that medical science might have progressed sufficiently to assess the one piece of evidence she has - a tainted lock of Jane's hair. Natural causes or murder?

Even 20 years down the line, Anne is determined to get to the bottom of the mysterious death of the acclaimed Miss Austen. A compelling speculative fictional account of the circumstances surrounding Jane Austen's mysterious death from established crime writer Lindsay Ashford, based on her own and relatives correspondence.