The Incredible Crime (Herbert Jenkins, 1931; Poisoned Pen Press, 2017) by Lois Austen Leigh (1883-1968) was the first of four mysteries written by the great-great niece of Jane Austen. All four were published during the 1930s in what seems to have been small print runs; her books are difficult to find. World War II effectively ended her writing career and Austen Leigh soon vanished from readers’ memories.

Somehow her work came to the attention of the editors of the British Library Crime Classics. I would like to know more about the discovery process; Austen Leigh is truly an obscure author. The introduction to the reprint is written by 18^th century English literature scholar Kirsten T. Saxton.

The action is split between Cambridge and an ancestral country home in Suffolk, thereby giving the reader two choice settings in one book. Austen Leigh’s uncle was Provost of King’s College at Cambridge, so she had a credible source for her detailed descriptions of the academic life.

The protagonist is Prudence Pinsent, the exuberant only child of the Master of Prince’s College of Cambridge, a retired bishop. Prudence is modern and unconventional, not especially interested in marriage. Her closest friends are all part of the academic community and through their conversation we have a bird’s eye view of the closed-in university world.

Prudence decides to visit her cousin in Suffolk for the hunting season. On her way to Wellende, Prudence meets the local captain of the Coast Guard who confides in her that Cambridge is believed to be the center of distribution for drugs that are being smuggled in somewhere along the Suffolk coast. He tells her that at least some of the people involved are part of Prudence’s social circle. The plot revolves around Prudence attempting to learn who it is.

Comparing Gaudy Night (1935) by Dorothy L. Sayers, Death on the Cherwell (1935) by Mavis Doriel Hay, and The Incredible Crime (1931), all Golden Age mysteries set in universities and written about the same time, is intriguing. Gaudy Night is by far the best mystery of the three. As a whodunit, this story falls sadly short. Add an unlikely romance for Prudence and a disappointing ending and I have to wonder why this is called a mystery.

On the other hand, it is a wonderfully evocative snapshot of the time in which it was written. Austen Leigh describes the Suffolk landscape and its denizens beautifully. The country manor with its ghost and wind whistling in through odd corners adds to the suspense. Hunting was still considered quite a sport then. Unlike the fox hunting mysteries of Rita Mae Brown, in which the hunting crowd just gathers for a good day’s ride with friends, these riders do their best to catch the fox and sometimes do, to the detriment of the fox.

Read this entry in the British Library Crime Classics series for the atmosphere and the setting, not the plot.

Photos of the cover and title page of the rare first edition are courtesy of Ms. Kristen R. Welzenbach, Assistant Director of Library Services/Curator of Special Collections and Archives, at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland. Ms. Welzenbach was also kind enough to send me the following letter written by Joan Austen Leigh, niece of Lois Austen Leigh, who is mentioned in the first paragraph. The letter is addressed to J. David Grey, one of the founders of the Jane Austen Society of North America.

I note that the British Library reprint hyphenates Austen-Leigh but the first edition does not.