The Alibi Club
A Novel
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4.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
It’s the city’s most infamous after-hours haunt—a glittering hotbed of deals and debaucheries. The sordid death of Philip Stilwell sends shock waves through the Alibi Club...for there’s much more to Stilwell’s untimely end than a sex game gone wrong. His murder and the desperate attempt to keep a deadly weapon out of German hands will bring together the strands of a twisted plot of betrayal, passion, and espionage—one connected to the Alibi Club...and to the most explosive secret of the war.
As the Nazis march on Paris and the crisis escalates, four remarkable characters are swept into the maelstrom. Their courage will change the course of history.
Epic and yet intimate, a seamless blend of fact and fiction based on a little-known episode of the war, The Alibi Club is a thriller of fierce and complex suspense by a writer whose own life in the spy world makes espionage come uniquely alive.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in the spring of 1811, Barron's ninth Jane Austen mystery (after 2005's Jane and His Lordship's Legacy) finds both detective and author in sparkling form. Jane is at the London theater during a visit to her brother Henry when she glimpses a Russian princess gazing intently at the box of prominent politician Lord Castlereagh. That night, the princess is found dead outside Castlereagh's home. Unconvinced by the appearance of suicide, Jane begins inquiries that eventually encompass high society and their servants, politicians of every stripe and even courtesans. When a chance act brings Jane a threatening visit from the Bow Street Runners, her search for the truth intensifies still further. The book's intricate plotting is satisfying right to the last revelation, and the variety of secondary characters depicted with affectionate irony adds humor and historical depth. Like Regency great Georgette Heyer, the author excels at both period detail and modern verve. Aping Austen's cool, precise and very famous voice is a hard trick to pull off, but Barron manages it with aplomb.