Death Comes to Pemberley
The year is 1803, and Darcy and Elizabeth have been married for six years. There are now two handsome and healthy sons in the nursery, Elizabeth's beloved sister Jane and her husband Bingley live nearby and the orderly world of Pemberley seems unassailable. But all this is threatened when, on the eve of the annual autumn ball, the guests are preparing to retire for the night when a chaise appears, rocking down the path from Pemberley's wild woodland. As it pulls up, Lydia Wickham — Elizabeth's younger, unreliable sister — stumbles out screaming that her husband has been murdered. Inspired by a lifelong passion for the work of Jane Austen, PD James recreates the world of Pride and Prejudice, and combines it with the suspense of a well-crafted crime story.
3.5 out of 5 based on 8 reviews
|
Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Fiction |
| Genre |
Crime, Thrillers & Mystery |
| Format |
Hardback |
| Pages |
320 |
| RRP |
£18.99 |
| Date of Publication |
November 2011 |
| ISBN |
978-0571283576 |
| Publisher |
Faber & Faber |
| |
The year is 1803, and Darcy and Elizabeth have been married for six years. There are now two handsome and healthy sons in the nursery, Elizabeth's beloved sister Jane and her husband Bingley live nearby and the orderly world of Pemberley seems unassailable. But all this is threatened when, on the eve of the annual autumn ball, the guests are preparing to retire for the night when a chaise appears, rocking down the path from Pemberley's wild woodland. As it pulls up, Lydia Wickham — Elizabeth's younger, unreliable sister — stumbles out screaming that her husband has been murdered. Inspired by a lifelong passion for the work of Jane Austen, PD James recreates the world of Pride and Prejudice, and combines it with the suspense of a well-crafted crime story.
PD James on 'Death Comes to Pemberley' | Telegraph
John Crace's Digested Read | Guardian
Reviews
The Daily Express
Emma Lee-Potter
"Her 19th novel combines a pacy detective story with perceptive insight into Elizabeth and Darcy’s marriage and an eye for period detail … Death Comes To Pemberley is an elegant, compelling read and clearly a labour of love."
04/11/2011
Read Full Review
The Scotsman
Allan Massie
"Her Elizabeth, settled as mistress of Pemberley, is duller than Austen’s, deprived of her mischievous wit, her sharp tongue kept on a rein. Darcy however is no longer the stock Romantic hero. He is allowed the inner life of which Austen gave scarcely more than a glimpse ... In general the novel is a delight. It reads happily and, as ever in PD James’s novels, the settings are beautifully and thoroughly imagined, the descriptions and exact. I can’t think that it could be better done."
05/11/2011
Read Full Review
The Sunday Times
Peter Kemp
"Informed portrayal of life above and below stairs in a Georgian country house is one of the novel’s most striking accomplishments. Another is its pleasurable re-creation of the atmosphere of Austen’s fictional world. Her wryly amused tone is nicely replicated ... Brimming with astute appreciation, inventiveness and narrative zest, Death Comes to Pemberley is an elegantly gauged homage to Austen and an exhilarating tribute to the inexhaustible vitality of James’s imagination."
30/10/2011
Read Full Review
The Spectator
Andrew Taylor
"... as much a homage to the Golden Age detective story as it is to Jane Austen ... The most interesting part of the novel, however, is the sense it gives of James, as a novelist, interrogating Jane Austen and her characters. She is a very shrewd reader indeed — for example, her analysis of Charlotte Lucas’s hidden influence on Darcy and Elizabeth’s courtship is masterly. At an earlier point, she skewers the latter’s unsentimental motivation in a few words — ‘Elizabeth knew that she was not formed for the sad contrivances of poverty.’ Jane Austen herself would have applauded."
12/11/2011
Read Full Review
The Evening Standard
Claire Harman
"Her charmingly conceived murder mystery unfolds like a big soft comfort blanket just in time for the nights drawing in: the nation's best-loved crime writer and best-known romance in a magic meld, with Downtony moments below stairs, spooky moonlit bits and some police procedural thrown in for good measure … The book could do with another death, or two. James is so busy doing Austen, she seems to have forgotten a bit how to do James."
27/10/2011
Read Full Review
The Times
Marcel Berlins
"... I had the feeling throughout that James was more interested in developing her beloved characters than in providing a satisfying mystery … My guess is that true followers of Austen will find James’s beautiful prose, and her loving feeling for the period and its language, greatly to their liking. Those primarily seeking a crime novel may be disappointed."
07/11/2011
Read Full Review
The Guardian
John O'Connell
"PD James's Jane Austen sequel-with-a-murder is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for the Boden-wearing classes … There's much here to rile purists, from the sometimes clunky and inconsistent pastiche to the introduction of characters from other Austen novels. The murder mystery, too, is hardly James's finest, but her enthusiasm and affection for the characters keeps you reading in spite of the flaws."
26/11/2011
Read Full Review
The New Statesman
Amanda Craig
"James's lack of confidence in readers' ability to remember Pride and Prejudice in detail detracts from her achievement as one of Austen's most inspired imitators, suited by temperament and upbringing to realising this sequel. In effect, she sacrifices her rigour as a writer of detective novels to wrench the plot back to happiness — yet nothing jars so much as Elizabeth's knowledge that she would not have married Darcy "had he been a penniless curate or struggling attorney". The whole point about Elizabeth as a revolutionary Georgian heroine is that she will marry for love and nothing but love."
14/11/2011
Read Full Review