The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte

I'm what's known in literary circles as a ''Jane-ite''— someone who rereads Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre at least once a year — so I was prepared to loathe The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë, which transforms Brontë and her sisters Emily and Anne into 19th-century sleuths investigating the stabbing death of a young governess. But Laura Joh Rowland (Red Chrysanthemum) not only evokes Victorian-era London with a sure hand in this detective novel, she creates a believable Charlotte whose intelligence, stubbornness, and wit recall Jane at every turn. Even more important, the mystery itself is particularly fine. A-