Pride, Prejudice, and Murder…Oh My. Review of P.D. James’s “Death Comes to Pemberley

This story picks up several years after Pride and Prejudice left off.  Elizabeth and Darcy are well at home in Pemberley with two boys of their own and the most pleasant of neighbors in Jane and Bingley.  The story opens up as Elizabeth is planning a ball only to have things thrown into shambles as Lydia Wickham shows up, hysterical that her husband is dead and his friend Denny has killed him.  Of course a search party is immediately sent out into the wilderness to track down the two missing men only to find that it is Denny who has been murdered and the infamous Mr. Wickham.  The twist? Darcy doesn’t think he did it.

As someone who respects but is not a diehard Pride and Prejudice fan I’m not sure I’m coming to this book with the same attitude a reader who is a tried and true Austenian would.  So, keep that in mind as you read this review.  I think James has created an excellent mystery here, there’s suspense, intrigue, drama, and the beautiful backdrop of Pemberley.

James does spend a lot of time in the beginning of the book explaining who the characters are, what their connections are, and the general setting itself which makes it possible to read this book without having read Pride and Prejudice.  I found this a little tedious and it did slow down the progression of the plot quite a bit (although I’m also a little bit of a snob and think if you don’t know the story line to Pride and Prejudice you shouldn’t be reading this book at all).  Once all the background and catching up is over the plot moves along at the respectable pace of a mystery and things start happening quickly.

In fact, I loved the mystery, hardly able to put it down, until the very end.  Everything was wrapped up in a very deus ex machina way, the mystery solved (with far too many loose threads created and tied up at once) and any complications that arose with the solving of the mystery taken care of.  Compared to the rest of the mystery it just didn’t seem as well thought out and came off as a little hurried.  In fact, I was a little disappointed with the way it all ended when the rest of the book had been done so well.

Even with the disappointing ending I did have fun reading this one although a knowledge (or at least a general “liking”) of Pride and Prejudice is probably a requirement for enjoying this read and don’t let your expectations get too high.  It’s a generally fun mystery that kept me turning the pages and James does an excellent job of re-creating the characters you already love.