Death Comes to Pemberley

Famed mystery writer P.D. James tries her hand at a sequel to a Jane Austen classic, Pride and Prejudice. In this novel, characters Elizabeth Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy have been married for six years, have two sons and are living a peaceful, productive life at the Darcy estate Pemberley. On the eve of the annual autumn ball, chaos erupts with the arrival of a carriage containing Lydia, Elizabeth’s disgraced sister who with her husband, the ne’er do well Wickham, have been banned from Pemberley. A distraught Lydia is screaming that her husband has been murdered. She must be sedated before Darcy and the others can investigate what has happened. They discover that fortunately Wickham is alive but unfortunately his friend Captain Denny has been murdered; and at first blush it seems that Wickham is the murderer. With a coroner’s inquest and a trial immediately proceeding, the truth comes out and Wickham is exonerated. A well-crafted murder mystery is resolved and a visit to the world of Jane Austen enjoyed through the efforts of the nonagenarian P.D. James.