Plot

When a young woman slips away from a Jane Austen weekend dressed in period attire and is found stabbed in the woods, Barnaby needs to look back in time to find the killer.

Journalist Samantha Berry is killed whilst attending a Regency-themed weekend run by Kitty and James Oswood, apparently on her way to receive information. The murder weapon is a poisoned quill, stolen from Gemma Christie's Jane Austen tea shop though Barnaby is also interested in a drone delivery service used by James' stepmother, pharmacist Mary Oswood, whose premises are broken into and its computer destroyed. James clearly has a guilty secret Samantha was keen to expose but when a drone, borrowed by Ray, Kitty's brother-in-law, is involved in another murder Barnaby must work out whether Oswood's past or opposition to the drones caused death by persuasion.—don @ minifie-1

James Oswood and his obsessed wife Katherine 'Kitty' returned to their ancestral Georgian estate, rebuilt after a fire, to run Regency-themed weekends, not to teen brat daughter Polly's taste. None seems aware that at their first actual event, paying guest Samantha Berry, actually a reporter, went missing and is found fatally stabbed in a wood nearby, with a poisoned quill, stolen from the tearoom of pseudo-historian Gemma Christie, who is jealous of the Oswoods tapping into to the village's alleged Jane Austen connection. The only likely 'witnesses' are the drones operated by teen ex-rowdy Ronin Chow for the experimental delivery service set up by local businessman Doug Vaughn, catering for the unenthusiastic pharmacist, James's stepmother Mary Oswood, instead of Gemma on bicycle, but a burglary without theft probably served to destroy whatever they recorded on cameras' Ronin installed behind his boss's back. Jamie dodges apparent romantic interest from forensic newcomer Petra Antonescu and does great research, but is almost run over by Gemma, who escaped from the estate on the evening of the costumed ball, where someone else fired a period gun, while Rionin slipped in to kiss Polly. Guest Solomon Franks turns out the source of the morphine syringe. Kitty's sister Mary and even her ex-cop husband, publican Ray Fryer, keep their own secrets, while at least Doug is blackmailing James, whose father, retired teacher James Oswood, is involved in an old feud and among the suspects in an old death case. Another murder leads to more secrets and motives.—KGF Vissers