Death Comes to Pemberley

There has been a lot of fuss about this new hybrid Austenuation/murder mystery - which I obviously fell for, hook, line and sinker - because P.D. James has been writing crime novels since Caxton was a lad, but unfortunately, I found Death Comes to Pemberley rather a disappointment. Falling between two stools, James' ode to Austen lacks the right measure of domestic felicity at Pemberley to satisfy the Pride and Prejudice groupies (of which I am not one), and at the same time fails to provide a meaty mystery for readers of her own genre. In fact, the last minute confession is almost insulting - I was hoping for another twist in the tale, but that was that.

The opening chapters are promising - six years on from the double Darcy/Bingley show more wedding, and Elizabeth is firmly ensconced as mistress of Pemberley, with two young sons, and her sister Jane lives happily nearby with Bingley and their three children. We are told that Darcy and Elizabeth are deeply in love and content with married life, even though Darcy still has doubts about marrying into the Bennet family and acquiring Wickham as a brother-in-law and Elizabeth possibly only married Darcy for his money, but since the Darcys hold but one intimate conversation, and that one a rehash of the plot of P+P in the final chapter, we have to take the author's word for it. Still, Darcy and Elizabeth behave very properly like the master and mistress of Pemberley, remembering the names of servants and visiting the children in the nursery once a day.

All is well, until the dark and stormy night before Lady Anne's ball, a Pemberley tradition. After an evening of stultifying boredom with the Bingleys, their house guest and Georgiana's suitor, Henry Alveston, and Colonel Fitzwilliam (who is now a miserable viscount), Lydia Wickham bowls up to the front door in a carriage, screaming blue murder. Literally. She claims that her husband has been shot, but when Darcy, the colonel and Alveston go into the 'haunted' wood - where Darcy's great grandfather killed his ailing dog and himself in his hermit's cottage - to investigate, they discover that Wickham is not the victim after all, but the suspected killer of his best friend, Captain Denny.

The mystery plods on from there - the 'police' arrive (or rather, two parish constables and a magistrate, but James insists on using the modern term), Wickham is taken away, an inquest follows, and then the trial. In London. Despite the fact that the murder took place in Derbyshire. Only the suspense of what really happened and why was keeping me hanging on - and then James ruins the whole story, with a pathetic 'confession' and pages of tenuous exposition. Without giving the game away for readers who haven't even opened the book, the whole tangled thread made little sense, apart from showing that Wickham is still a very bad boy in one way or another.

And I have other questions - why no children for Lydia and Wickham, who apparently isn't loaded with blanks? How, if the story is set in late 1803/1804 - following on from the contemporary date when Austen finished writing Pride and Prejudice - do the Elliots of Persuasion and the Martins and Knightleys of Emma make cameo appearances in the backstory when both novels were set ten years later?

James captures the narrative style of Austen, and gets the sardonic humour right on occasion, but the mystery falls flat. For a more successful spin on the same premise, read Carrie Bebris' Mr and Mrs Darcy series, which combine the light and loving touch of the Darcys and the Nick and Nora approach to armchair detection, with far more verve and affection than this miserable attempt. show less

This was just terrible. How terrible? Let me count the ways (POTENTIAL SPOILERS):

1. Why write a follow-up to Pride and Prejudice if you seemingly make little effort to capture the essential essence of the primary characters?

2. Why write a follow-up to Pride and Prejudice that turns Elizabeth into a simpering, boring, obedient little wifey-poo and Darcy into a complete uptight prig (granted, he always kind of was but he was also charming and there is none of that here)?

3. Why write a follow-up to Pride and Prejudice that is a murder mystery and make it SO INCREDIBLY DUMB AND BORING that the reader can barely bring herself to care?

4. Why write a follow-up to Pride and Prejudice that is a murder mystery and include plot holes so big you show more could drive a chaise-and-four through them? Why didn't anyone bother asking Lydia what Wickham and Denny were arguing about?!?!?!

5. Why write anything if you are basically just going to phone it in and tell your story completely through terribly awkward exposition and long speeches?

6. .... I can't go on. I don't know why I bothered to finish this except that maybe because it was on audio. Had it been a "real" book, I am fairly confident I would have just skipped to the last few pages to see whodunnit. Oh, except that would have told me nothing because we learn whodunnit well before the end of the book, after which time, Ms. James just goes on and on about nothing at all and won't let her crappy story die. I wanted to stab myself in the ears by the end of it.

So, yeah, not recommended. show less

I went into *Death Comes to Pemberley* wanting to love it. P. D. James is one of my favorite writers, and I trust her completely when it comes to structure, character, and moral complexity.

But at its core, this is still a continuation of *Pride and Prejudice*, and that underlying world simply does not work for me.

Because I haven’t read Austen, I can’t judge how accurate the continuation is—but knowing James, I assume it’s handled with care and precision. The issue isn’t execution. It’s the framework itself.

The novel operates within a very formal moral system where behavior, reputation, and social rules dominate every interaction. Characters act according to expectation rather than internal truth, and emotional expression show more feels constrained by etiquette. I found this frustrating rather than engaging.

Even with a murder at the center, the story never fully escapes that controlled environment. Instead of tension, I felt distance. Instead of psychological depth, I felt social performance.

This isn’t a flaw in the writing—it’s a mismatch in taste. Readers who enjoy Austen’s world and its codes of behavior will likely appreciate what James does here. For me, the structure itself creates a barrier I couldn’t get past. show less

It's impossible to begrudge PD James the pleasure she must have had in continuing Pride and prejudice into a murder mystery, but if it was anyone else I would wish she hadn't. I've read better fanfic continuations by worse authors - I think PD James' problem may be that she is a good writer, so it is easier to measure her against Jane Austen - which is a comparison devoutly to be unwished. James' prose just shows us how Elizabeth Bennett, who sparkles and flies in Pride and Prejudice is turned into a rather dull woman; and her plot, neat as it is, neither works as romance nor detective story - and is interwoven with great chunks of exposition about matters such as the criminal justice system in the 1800s. Again, one thinks how wise Jane show more Austen was in confining her books largely to the universal, albeit in a very small world. I'd read the Dalglish novels first and save this perhaps for a holiday read... show less

Badly Done, Ms James, Badly Done
I was all anticipation when I bought this, assuming incorrectly that it would be at least a decent murder mystery, if not a skilled Pride and Prejudice take-off. Unfortunately it was neither.

The murder mystery part is badly done; Darcy is betrayed as a wimp; the writing is drab and un-Austen-like, - and over all it is just plain boring.

The dawdling style is more reminiscent of Arthur Conan Doyle - Victorian rather than Empire. Where is the wit, the sharpness, the humor that one has come to expect from Austen take-offs?

If I were smart enough, I'd think of something witty and Austen to say in conclusion. As I am not I will just say, "don't bother".

After seeing lots of mediocre to negative reviews of this mystery that uses Austen's characters from Pride and Prejudice, I had very low expectations for this book. That ended up working pretty well for me. I've been really stressed out from work and having two little kids and I wanted something totally mindless to read. I ended up kind of liking this revisit of some of my favorite characters.

I though the book started out pretty well, reintroducing everyone 6 years after the end of P&P, though I was suspicious of the evil turn that Colonel Fitzwilliam has taken. Things were shaping up with the conflict between Alveston and Col Fitzwilliam for Georgiana when the unfortunate mystery started. The mystery was really lame (why did they not show more ever ask Lydia what Wickham and Denny were fighting about?). I think the book would have been better if James had brought in totally new characters for the mystery part and used the setting of Pemberly so she could use Austen's characters.

Basically, I liked the first third of the book and became more and more dissatisfied. But, honestly, it fit the bill for my mood and it was such a fast read that I don't feel like it wasted my time. Not really recommended unless you understand what you're getting and feel in the mood for it. show less

SO disappointing! I've deliberately been avoiding reading the many, many new authors who have picked up Jane Austen's characters and launched them into new adventures. Why? Because it's NOT the characters (at least not taken on their own strength) that make Jane Austen novels so memorable, it's Austen's storytelling prowess and subtle wit - which, if they were so easy to duplicate/imitate, would scarcely explain why the author remains so admired today. However, I was tempted into setting aside my misgivings by the prospect of an Austen mystery written by an author with proven mystery chops. Maybe, I thought, the diversion of a good mystery plot would distract my attention from any potential lapses in technique or wit.

The story picks up show more six years after the marriage of Elizabeth Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy, whose highly-entertaining courtship is described in Pride & Prejudice. The plot revolves around Lydia's rogue of a husband, Wickham, who finds himself accused of murder after being present (albeit hopelessly drunk) at the bludgeoning death of a fellow soldier on the Pemberley estate.

Alas, the mystery plot never becomes remotely interesting, which caused me to shift my focus to the storytelling, which doesn't stand up to scrutiny either. I simply don't understand how a writer as competent as James could have committed so many basic storytelling errors: abandoning a major character (Lydia) half-way through the novel; creating a mystery with a resolution that is revealed not through investigation or cleverness but through improbable chance/coincidence; retelling items of plot over and over again (first we hear the info from Elizabeth, then she retells the tale to Jane, then the whole tale gets repeated AGAIN at the inquest ... sheesh!); and, finally, wrapping up the novel with an epilogue that unnecessarily rehashes an episode from Pride & Prejudice that was satisfactorily resolved in the original text and certainly in no need of rehashing here.

Also didn't appreciate inconsistencies in characterization (where has Elizabeth's sardonic wit disappeared to? where has Darcy's haughtiness gone?) or James' attempt to "update" Austen's storytelling by having her characters explicitly discuss their feelings/emotions rather than leaving it to us readers to infer them. This sequel doesn't begin to live up to the subtlety or wit of Austen's original text.

In short, I've learned my lesson: there's only one Jane Austen, and she died in 1817. In future I'll be more disciplined about giving these Austen pastiches a miss. show less