Death Comes to Pemberley (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

P.D. James has often quoted "Pride and Prejudice" as being her favourite novel. It is also mine, and P.D. James one of my favourite authors, so I read this book with much excitement. Over the years, there have been many other writers who have attempted sequels or mysteries, using characters from "Pride and Prejucice", but none with the success that has been managed in this novel.

The prologue cleverly recounts the essential facts of "Pride and Prejudice" and where the characters are currently at when we meet them again. It is Friday the 14th of October, 1803. England is at war with France and Pemberley is preparing for the annual Lady Anne ball, named after Darcy's mother, the sister of Catherine de Burgh. There are characters we know already at Pemberley - Darcy and Elizabeth of course, Bingley and Jane, Captain Fitzwilliam, now a viscount, and Darcy's sister Georgiana. There are also new characters, amongst them a lawyer friend of Bingley's, Mr Henry Alveston, who wishes to restore his family fortune and estate in Surrey. It is a windy evening, and there is a sense of preparation and also a slightly uncomfortable atmosphere between Captain Fitzwilliam and Mr Alveston, who are both competing for Georgiana's attention. Later, a chaise comes lurching and swaying towards the house. Nobody else is expected and to everyone's surprise, Lydia falls out, calling there has been a murder and screaming hysterically for help.

It is always difficult to review a mystery book, as I have no wish to give away the plot. Therefore, I will leave it to you to discover who the victim is and what happened. What I will say is that P.D. James has expertly kept the characters of the original novel intact - you recognise Lydia, the letters of Mr Collins and Lady de Burgh ring true, and Mr Bennet is exactly as you expect. The author has found the spirit of the book and re-created it, with great new characters, such as the former head coachman at Pemberley, Thomas Bidwell, and his family and the magistrate, Sir Selwyn Hardcastle. It is easy to imagine life at Pemberley, with the slightly resentful local ladies who have lost Darcy as a marriage prospect, the ambitious footman and Louisa, Bidwell's daughter, intelligent and restless with the possibility of life as a parlourmaid.

There is a sighting of a ghost in the grounds, an inquest and a trial, with thrilling courtroom scenes and a wonderful finale. I can only say that, as someone who has read "Pride and Prejudice" many times, I found this book extremely well written, enjoyable and believable. I am sure that, if you are also a fan of Miss Austen, you will also find this a worthy sequel to her work and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I am always a bit dubious about the 'hommage' to a successful writer--and Austen has suffered more than most in this respect--but I do enjoy the writing of PD James usually, and so thought 'Death Comes to Pemberley' might be a delightful exception to this general grim rule that imitators never prosper.

Sadly, no. No wit, no social commentary, no sparkling dialogue, no self-examination. The characters were unrecognisable, and there was no sense of their development. This book at times reads only like a badly-written precis of the original--the epilogue, especially, resembled a re-hash of Darcy's previous thoughts about his courtship--would he really be obsessing about this six years in the future? It is hard to imagine that anyone would read this if they were not familiar with Austen, so why tediously re-tell the original plot (unless of course it is a space-filler--the thought did cross my mind).

I was sadly disappointed by this book. As a crime novel it was predictable and dull, as an Austen tribute clumsy and unsophisticated. I find it hard to believe the ecstatic reviewers here actually read the same text as I did. Please, gentle reader, don't be fooled. Save your money and buy one of James's other (excellent books). Oh that the shades of Pemberley should be thus polluted!

I imagined "Death Comes to Pemberley" was going to be a cosy read for myself and Madame Gersbach to saunter through over Christmas. Here we have an "acclaimed" writer taking the characters from a wonderful Austen novel and playing about with them in a crime story. I didn't expect anything comparable to the real thing in terms of quality of prose or effortless wit but I did expect something light and amusing with an intriguing and entertaining plot.

Oh,how wrong can a poor boy be!

After an amusing and breezy prologue which introduced the main protagonists and filled in the interim between Austen's conclusion and James' commencement, the book hit the buffers.From the start,Darcy and Elizabeth were transformed into a cross between the Oxo Couple (Katy and Phillip?)and the Glums,Darcy having lost most of his haughty confidence and Elizabeth her feisty wit.The Pemberley they are given here had curiously been translated into an early nineteenth century version of "Downton Abbey" where servants held the stage alongside their crushingly boring employers in a way that I can't remember them doing in any of the Austen that I've read.The "crime" element is feeble where it isn't farcical.From time to time,the author also treats us to lectures on various aspects of the society of the time which suggest both a low opinion of the knowledge of her readers and a lack of skill in historical scene-setting.Somehow Austen managed to give us all we need to know about her world without getting out the history books and hitting us over the head with them.

In short,"Death at Pemberley" could most charitably be described as a damp squib.I wanted to like it because I admire P.D.James for having the energy,let alone the marbles, to produce novels at her age and I think Jane Austen,beneath the gaudy layers of cinematic misinterpretation of recent years, is a true giant in English literature.Unfortunately I found this misconceived and stodgily executed product of their meeting impossible to love.