Death Comes to Pemberley – Some Reviews

Towards the end of last year there was a lot of talk about P.D. James’s book Death Comes to Pemberley. Everyone was dying to read it (pun intended). In my opinion the book has gotten some mixed reviews. When the friend who wrote last week’s review of Jane Austen by Carol Shields told me that her book club’s July pick was Death Comes to Pemberley I asked if she would review that for us as well.

Below are two reviews of the book. 

 
My friend sent her review to me with a warning that it wasn’t nice. She was honest in her review:

Written by P D James, a successful English mystery writer, this book gives little encouragement to read her other novels. Set six years after Elizabeth and Darcy’s marriage, Death Comes to Pemberley, records a suspicious death involving the dastardly Mr. Wickham on the estate of Pemberley. As usual Mr. and Mrs. Darcy are left to throw out the trash regarding family indiscretions. The characters of Elizabeth and Darcy are unrecognizable. Where is the wit, their banter, their interactions?! Elizabeth and Darcy are rarely in the same room together. And when they open their mouths, I begin to wish they closed them. I guess after six years of marriage they have lost their ability for intelligent conversation and have become sedate, even boring landowners who have nothing to say to each other.

You can read her full review here.

Last is the positive review:

I read it in Dec 2011 and I thoroughly enjoyed it. 1) P.D.James is a marvelous author and I was thrilled to see how she continued writing in the “Austen” theme. Time was 1803 and Elizabeth and Darcy are married with two sons. For me reading it, it was like a continuance of P & P and I was happy to hear how they married life was progressing. Of course since P.D. James is a mystery writer she included a dead body and our previous “Bad Boy” Mr. Wickham was allowed at Darcy’s house.