Pride & Prejudice meets Sherlock Holmes in this sharp-witted Regency mystery, featuring a crime-solving Bennet/Darcy team-up in a Jane Austen variation where the Bennet sisters lost their estate before marriage saved them.
Fitzwilliam Darcy believes his worst problem is the mistake he made a year and a half ago, when he snubbed Miss Elizabeth Bennet and separated his friend Bingley from her sister Jane. That is, until a corrupt viscount is found murdered, just after Bingley's antique Aphrodite statue vanishes during a ball. The crimes appear to be linked-and Darcy's oldest adversary, Mr Wickham, may be trying to frame him for both.
They enlist an investigator, coincidentally the Miss Bennets' cousin, who has entirely the wrong impression of Darcy and Wickham's history. When Elizabeth Bennet finally re-enters the picture, Darcy must open up to her about the blackguard's lies-for in the end, they will need both her keen character observations and the investigator's cutting-edge methods to prove Darcy's innocence.
In a tangle of secrets and deceit, Darcy and his friends must race to uncover the true culprit-before he pays the ultimate price.