The Colonel is still overbearing, Darcy is flat, Lydia is still a brat, ect. I jumped to the end of the book to see if some of the character problems were resolved. After reading half the book the locals belief of a malevolent spirit living in the woods has barely been touched upon. All the characters seem like parodies of the original. Next, I didn’t feel the connection between Darcy and Elizabeth. He is bossy, controlling and horrible as he strides across the page. My first big problem was the character of the Colonel, Darcy’s cousin. I finally looked at the book, sitting on the table, on the sofa, and the floor, and realized the location wasn’t the problem, it was the book that had the problem. The author was correct! She should have stopped, reconsidered and never written this book. James makes a coy apology to Jane Austen for dragging her characters through the trauma of a murder, concluding that Austen would have written this story better herself. In 2013, this novel was adapted as a miniseries by the BBC, starring Matthew Rhys as Darcy, Anna Maxwell Martin as Elizabeth Bennet and Jenna Coleman as Lydia Wickham. Conjuring the world of Elizabeth Bennet and Mark Darcy and combining the trappings of Regency British society with a classic murder mystery, James creates a delightful mash-up that will intrigue any Janeite.įrom the bestselling author of The Murder Room, Children of Men and A Certain Justice, comes a wonderful mixture of the nation’s greatest romance and best-loved crime fiction. James and literary icon Jane Austen – come together in Death Comes to Pemberley, a bestselling historical crime fiction tribute to Pride and Prejudice. Two great literary minds – master of suspense P.D. As it pulls up, Lydia Wickham – Elizabeth Bennet’s younger, unreliable sister – stumbles out screaming that her husband has been murdered.

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. 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. The year is 1803, and Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet have been married for six years.

Death comes to pemberley book review