Although it pains me to write this, I haven't read all that many of the Classics. As both a librarian and an English major, I am embarrassed by this fact. I came to my love of reading later in life, choosing to be an English teacher more because of my enjoyment of grammar than my love of literature. So, as a result, I've been playing catch-up for many years now...and I'm still very far behind where many of my peers are insofar as their reading resume is concerned. That's why I was very excited when our faculty book club selected Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James as our next book. Who is P.D. James you might ask? Well, she isn't one of the masters of world literature. However, she is an extremely talented and very popular British author and crime novelist with the title OBE (Order of the British Empire) after her name. Not Austen, but she's legit. So, who better, then, to pick up where Jane Austen left off at the end of Pride and Prejudice, complete with Austen's tone and style. So, although this book isn't a CLASSIC, it made me feel better because it kinda sorta felt like one!
Death Comes to Pemberley begins with a proper introduction of Austen's characters from Pride and Prejudice and catches the reader up with what's been going on since the close of the venerable classic to the present time period of the book, the year 1803. James open the book with an apology to Austen, just to set the stage: "I owe an apology to the shade of Jane Austen," she writes in her author's note, "for involving her beloved Elizabeth in the trauma of a murder investigation…" And thus Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, Jane and Mr. Bingley, and Lydia and Mr. Wickham, are thrust into an event which Austen never dabbled in: murder.
The real action of the book begins on the eve of the annual Pemberley Ball as many of the guests are dining and anticipating the next day's glorious events. Unexpectedly Lydia arrives in a whirlwind of a careening coach, alone with just the driver, and without Mr. Wickham. Condisering that the Wickhams had not been invited to the ball, this was indeed an unexpected event. As the plot quickly unfolds, we learn that Mr. Wickham's friend, Mr. Denny, as been murdered in the woodland on the Pemberley property, and Mr. Wickham is suspected of committing the crime.
Mr. Darcy, always proper and noble, retrieves the magistrate and begins a proper investigation into the true details of this crime while Elizabeth maintains Pemberley and manages her distraught sister and, quite possibly, her murderer of a husband. Murder aside, everything is as it should be. A full investigation ensues all while the propriety of true English aristocracy attempts to maintain the dignity of hearth and home amidst a true scandal.
