I think this book is an absolute literary triumph. In her latest novel, the venerable P. D. James weds her immense skill in crafting character-driven mysteries with her own passion for Jane Austen. She picks up six years after Pride and Prejudice leaves off (spoiler alert for those of you who haven't yet gotten to that classic--which you should, by the way; you will here learn how some of the relationships resolve in that earlier work), focusing on the home of Elizabeth and Darcy. But tragedy strikes on the eve of Pemberley's grand ball, and Elizabeth's brother-in-law Wickham is the suspect. By many twists and turns, we are brought back into the somewhat twisted world of these characters that Jane Austen formed, this time in search of a killer.
I was amazed at how well James is able to pick up the story from Pride and Prejudice. She deftly works her story in a way that seems so natural it was often hard to recall as I was reading whether events she referred to were in her work or in Austen's original. And I think she picked up on the perfect "seam" from P&P, with the tenuous entrance of Wickham into the Bennet family with all of the past baggage and conflict that he brought to that first story but which was left unresolved at the end. After reading Death Comes to Pemberley, it almost feels as if P&P is incomplete without James's masterful extension. This homage fit seamlessly with the original for me, and I loved it.
