Barron, Stephanie 1963- (Francine Stephanie Barron, Francine Mathews)

PERSONAL:

Born 1963, in Binghamton, NY; daughter of a general in the U.S. Air Force; children: Sam, one other son. Education: Princeton University, B.A., 1985; Stanford University, M.A. Hobbies and other interests: Gardening, skiing, needlepoint, shopping for art.

CAREER:

Part-time journalist for the Miami Herald and San Jose Mercury News, late 1980s; Central Intelligence Agency, intelligence analyst, 1988-92; fulltime freelance writer, 1992—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Arthur W. Mellon Foundation fellowship in the humanities, Princeton University, c. 1984.

WRITINGS:

"JANE AUSTEN" SERIES; MYSTERY NOVELS

Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 1996.

Jane and the Man of the Cloth, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 1997.

Jane and the Wandering Eye, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 1998.

Jane and the Genius of the Place, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 1999.

Jane and the Stillroom Maid, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 2000.

Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 2001.

Jane and the Ghosts of Netley, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 2003.

Jane and His Lordship's Legacy, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 2005.

Jane and the Barque of Frailty, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 2006.

"MERRY FOLGER" SERIES; MYSTERY NOVELS; UNDER PSEUDONYM FRANCINE MATHEWS

Death in the Off-Season, William Morrow (New York, NY), 1994.

Death in Rough Water, William Morrow (New York, NY), 1995.

Death in a Mood Indigo, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 1997.

Death in a Cold Hard Light, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 1998.

OTHER FICTION; UNDER PSEUDONYM FRANCINE MATHEWS

The Cutout, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 2001.

The Secret Agent, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 2002.

Blown (sequel to The Cutout), Bantam Books (New York, NY), 2005.

The Alibi Club, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to The Sunken Sailor, 2004.

ADAPTATIONS:

Several of the "Jane Austen" mystery series books have been adapted to cassette tape, including Jane and the Stillroom Maid, Books on Tape, 2000, and Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House, Books on Tape, 2001.

SIDELIGHTS:

Stephanie Barron, who also writes under the pen name Francine Mathews, has earned a large fan-following for her historical mysteries as well as for modern crime and thriller novels. As Barron, she is the author of the "Jane Austen" mysteries that fictionalize the famous nineteenth-century author as an amateur crime sleuth. Under her pseudonym, Barron uses her background as a former intelligence analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency to create modern thrillers about neo-Nazi terrorists in her "Merry Folger" series about a Nantucket police detective. Many of Barron's novels have been praised for their historical accuracy, strong characters, and page-turning pace.

After quitting the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1992, Barron pursued a life as a mother and freelance author. She decided to embark on her new career by selecting crime fiction as her genre of choice and writing under the pseudonym Francine Mathews. Setting her first stories in Nantucket, Barron created police detective Merry Folger, the daughter of the city's police chief. Folger solves a variety of murders in a four-book series that was lauded for its strong sense of place and realistic heroine. For example, reviewing Death in Rough Water, a Publishers Weekly critic noted that the author "skillfully incorporates close-knit relationships, small-town gossip and a salty Nantucket flavor." Alice DiNizo, critiquing Death in a Cold Hard Light for the Library Journal, reported that the author "writes appealingly, making her characters human, fallible, and thoughtful and her story line always believable." A Publishers Weekly writer, assessing the same novel, felt that "distinctive characterization and deft plotting … mark this series."

While still finishing up her Merry Folger stories, Barron began a new series, published under her own name, that featured Jane Austen, the author of such classics as Pride and Prejudice and Emma. When asked by Publishers Weekly interviewer Monica Whitbread why she chose to fictionalize the famous writer and turn her into a sleuth, Barron replied: "I've always been an Austen reader and studied European history and Napoleonic France in my undergraduate days. The mystery format seemed appropriate for a modern reader, rather than a novel of manners. Since Austen is less well known than her characters, I thought it would be interesting to do something with Austen's life itself." Using the fictional premise that she discovered a collection of Austen's papers in a Baltimore, Maryland, home, Barron took advantage of the fact that Austen's sister Cassandra once destroyed many of the author's letters. This left a gap of many years in Austen's biography about which little was known. Barron fills the gap by creating adventures for the bright, young Austen in the early 1800s. "Barron's basic conceit is surprisingly persuasive: the same qualities that made Austen a brilliant writer make her an ace detective, namely, her quick wit and her psychological acuity," reported Time contributor Lev Grossman. Beginning with Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, Barron has continued to write about her heroine since 1996.

Initial critical reception to the "Jane Austen" series was somewhat tepid. The debut novel, Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, was called "an appealing idea, but inadequately served here," by a Publishers Weekly reviewer, for example. About later installments, however, critics were more enthusiastic. "Barron has masterfully imitated Austen's voice" in Jane and His Lordship's Legacy, another Publishers Weekly contributor attested. Another critic from this periodical, reviewing Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House, similarly praised the way Barron accurately captured the original author's tone of voice, adding that the "novel's real achievement, though, is the portrayal of the minor characters." Historical accuracy in the series was also praised by critics. "Details of early 19th-century country life of all classes ring true," said one Publishers Weekly contributor about Jane and the Stillroom Maid. Joanne Wilkinson pointed out in a Booklist review of Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor that the author adopts the formal tone of the era, yet "this is an Austen for the 1990s, complete with a blunt and ardent feminism, and it's all a great deal of fun." Overall, critics echoed the opinion of Jane Davis in the Decatur Daily, who concluded in a review of Jane and His Lordship's Legacy that "this series is a delight for Jane Austen fans, as Barron presents the same comedy of manners that Austen so aptly extolled."

Beginning with 2001's The Cutout, Barron began writing novels, as Francine Mathews, that drew on her days in the CIA. She related to an interviewer for Bookreporter.com some details of her former career: "I was trained for a year in operations—which means paramilitary training, tradecraft training, etc.—but worked for three as an intelligence analyst, which essentially means I wrote predictive pieces for the White House and other policymakers on key foreign policy issues. I worked for a small unit that compiled psychological assessments of world leaders—a job I gave my heroine [in The Cutout and Blown], Caroline Carmichael, who is the expert on a particularly dangerous terrorist's mind. I also spent some time on the Pan Am 103 Task Force, which supported the FBI's investigation into the bombing of that plane over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. The task force lived in the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, and my work there was my introduction to the whole CTC world, which I loved. I respect the people who staff it more than anybody else I know in intelligence. And so I modeled many of my characters in both The Cutout and Blown on friends or mentors who work counterterrorism issues."

Both The Cutout and Blown pit Carmichael against a neo-Nazi terrorist group called 30 April (they are named after the date when Adolf Hitler shot himself). In The Cutout, 30 April kidnaps the U.S. vice president, and Carmichael's husband, who is also an agent, is suspected of being a traitor. In Blown, Carmichael becomes involved in pursuing a 30 April killer who slaughtered hundreds of people using poisoned drinks at a marathon race. A Publishers Weekly contributor reviewing The Cutout felt that Barron "keeps the action moving at a sprightly pace, and her presentation of espionage and CIA tactics is impeccable." "Because of the author's expertise she is able to personalize the CIA far beyond what any current author has been able to do," remarked Thea Davis in her Mystery Reader review. Praising the fast-paced action in Blown, Bookreporter.com critic Joe Hartlaub concluded: "Mathews creates the sense that the reader should be holding Blown in one hand and a ticking stopwatch in the other." "Though the author … executes gripping tension with aplomb," commented Jane Jorgenson in the Library Journal, "her characterizations are what hold the reader."

Barron is also the author of the thrillers The Secret Agent and The Alibi Club. The former is based on a true story in which a U.S. agent named Jim Thompson disappeared in Thailand. The author uses so many authentic details that she had to submit her manuscript to the CIA for approval before she could publish it. Wayne E. Yang, writing for the Asian Review of Books, found that "the prose is mostly very good, at times excellent enough to suggest that we need to keep an eye on where Mathews will take her next literary thriller." The Alibi Club is a thriller set in 1940 Paris in which an American journalist is killed for knowing too much about France's atomic weapons program. The novel was favorably compared to "Alan Furst's novels about Paris" by a Publishers Weekly critic.

On her Web site, Barron related that her desire to write goes back to her childhood: "When I was young, I put words on paper because I was a solitary child, because my father died when I was a teenager, and the world I could make in the pages of lined notebooks helped keep my loneliness at bay. I wrote to escape, to conceive a more exotic life. I wrote myself out of despair and into adulthood, and words, for me, will always possess a transformative power. But ultimately I wrote because I had no choice. Words are the way I understand existence. Maybe this comes from voracious reading, or maybe from the particles of DNA in my body. I know that I am incapable of drawing more than a stick-figure, incapable of singing an unwavering note; but words are the gift of my particular brain. When I write, I live out my destiny as much as an elk does, bugling in the autumn, or a salmon swimming upstream."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 1, 1996, Joanne Wilkinson, review of Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, p. 1345; January 1, 1997, Joanne Wilkinson, review of Jane and the Man of the Cloth, p. 823; June 1, 1997, Emily Melton, review of Death in a Mood Indigo, p. 1667; December 1, 1997, Joanne Wilkinson, review of Jane and the Wandering Eye, p. 610; April 15, 1998, John Rowen, review of Death in a Cold Hard Light, p. 1389; May 1, 2000, Barbara Bibel, review of Jane and the Stillroom Maid, p. 1610; October 15, 2001, Kristine Huntley, review of Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House, p. 384; May 1, 2003, Kristine Huntley, review of Jane and the Ghosts of Netley, p. 1531; February 15, 2005, Kristine Huntley, review of Jane and His Lordship's Legacy, p. 1063; May 15, 2005, Whitney Scott, review of Jane and His Lordship's Legacy, p. 1680; October 1, 2006, Allison Block, review of Jane and the Barque of Frailty, p. 39.

Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2001, review of Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House, p. 1393; May 1, 2002, review of The Secret Agent, p. 603; April 15, 2003, review of Jane and the Ghosts of Net-ley, p. 572; January 15, 2005, review of Jane and His Lordship's Legacy, p. 83; March 15, 2005, review of Blown, p. 309; October 1, 2006, review of Jane and the Barque of Frailty, p. 988.

Library Journal, June 1, 1997, Rex E. Klett, review of Death in a Mood Indigo, p. 156; December 1, 1997, Rex E. Klett, review of Jane and the Wandering Eye, p. 159; June 1, 1998, Alice DiNizo, review of Death in a Cold Hard Light, p. 167; March 1, 2000, review of Jane and the Stillroom Maid, p. 7; June 1, 2000, Rex E. Klett, review of Jane and the Stillroom Maid, p. 210; November 1, 2001, Rex E. Klett, review of Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House, p. 136; June 15, 2002, Jane Jorgenson, review of The Secret Agent, p. 95; May 1, 2003, Rex E. Klett, review of Jane and the Ghosts of Netley, p. 159; February 1, 2005, Rex E. Klett, review of Jane and His Lordship's Legacy, p. 57; May 1, 2005, Jane Jorgenson, review of Blown, p. 75; April 15, 2006, Sarah Nagle, review of Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manner, p. 128.

Mystery News, February-March, 2007, Virginia R. Knight, "Francine Mathews: Past, Present, Fact, Fiction," interview with Francine Mathews.

New York Times Book Review, June 22, 2003, review of Jane and the Ghosts of Netley, p. 17.

Publishers Weekly, August 14, 1995, review of Death in Rough Water, p. 74; March 4, 1996, review of Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, p. 56; November 11, 1996, review of Jane and the Man of the Cloth, p. 59; April 21, 1997, review of Death in a Mood Indigo, p. 63; November 24, 1997, review of Jane and the Wandering Eye, p. 55; March 30, 1998, review of Death in a Cold Hard Light, p. 72; January 4, 1999, review of Jane and the Genius of the Place, p. 77; July 17, 2000, review of Jane and the Stillroom Maid, p. 178; November 27, 2000, review of The Cutout, p. 53; November 5, 2001, review of Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House, p. 45; November 5, 2001, Monica Whitbread, "PW Talks with Stephanie Barron," p. 44; May 20, 2002, review of The Secret Agent, p. 47; February 14, 2005, review of Jane and His Lordship's Legacy, p. 57; April 11, 2005, review of Blown, p. 33; June 12, 2006, review of The Alibi Club, p. 31; October 16, 2006, review of Jane and the Barque of Frailty, p. 38.

School Library Journal, March 1, 2001, Linda A. Vretos, review of Jane and the Stillroom Maid, p. 281; October 1, 2003, Jane Halsall, review of Jane and the Ghosts of Netley, p. 207.

Time, August 11, 2003, Lev Grossman, review of Jane and the Ghosts of Netley, p. 58.

ONLINE

Asian Review of Books,http://www.asianreviewofbooks.com/ (September 27, 2002), Wayne E. Yang, review of The Secret Agent.

BookLoons,http://www.bookloons.com/ (April 13, 2007), Anise Hollingshead, review of Jane and the Stillroom Maid.

Bookreporter.com,http://www.bookreporter.com/ (April 13, 2007), interview with Francine Mathews, and Joe Hartlaub, review of Blown.

Decatur Daily Online,http://www.decaturdaily.com/ (April 3, 2005), Jane Davis, "Another ‘Just Right’ Jane Austen Tale," review of Jane and His Lordship's Legacy.

Francine Mathews Home Page,http://www.francinemathews.com (April 13, 2007).

Mystery Reader,http://www.themysteryreader.com/ (April 13, 2007), Jessica Plonka, review of Jane and the Ghosts of Netley, Jennifer Monahan Winberry, review of Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House, and Thea Davis, reviews of Blown and The Cutout.

Stephanie Barron Home Page,http://www.stephaniebarron.com (April 13, 2007).