This book stands well enough on its own wit and sheer exuberance even if you don't catch any of the sly references to "Pride and Prejudice." I was already fully enjoying the core story of a TV crew's disrupting influence on a bucolic village before something in the pub dance scene struck a chord of recognition. It sounds as if some of the previous reviewers got a bit hung up looking for parallels when the book was offering surprises. Certainly the early chapters, which lulled this New Yorker into a sentimental longing for the Yorkshire countryside, left me quite unprepared for the breathless page-turners in the latter half. I haven't read such well-sustained suspense since Jack Finney's multi-chapter chase scene in "Time and Again."