Death Comes to Pemberly is a murder mystery based on the characters from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. The novel joins Mr and Mrs Darcy after they have been married for six year and just as they are preparing to hold their annual ball in honour of Mr Darcy’s mother.
Everything is going well, Jane and Bingley have arrived and their staff have preparations well in hand. Then the night before the ball Lydia turns up hysterical, screaming that her husband has been murdered. We find out that Lydia, with Wickham and Denny, had been on her way to Pemberley for the ball, uninvited of course, when Wickham and Denny had gone into the woods and gunshots were heard. Lydia promptly took off, headed straight for Pemberley.
Review of 'La muerte llega a Pemberley' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Una novela de misterio sencilla, cuya mayor notoriedad es recordarnos los personajes tan queridos de Jane Austen en Orgullo y Prejuicio.
Nos encontramos al señor y señora Darcy, 6 años después, con un matrimonio consolidado, haciéndose cargo responsablemente de Pemberley. La noche antes del baile de Lady Anne, uno de los más esperados por todas las personas importantes del lugar, sucede un hecho inesperado y trágico que vendrá a poner nuevamente en entredicho el honor de la familia, así que no es de sorprenderse que el señor y la señora Wickham estén de por medio.
El misterio no llega tenebroso, más bien, retoma las costumbres de la época y se convierte en una investigación policial donde la participación de los personajes de Austen hace destacar sus características conocidas y fortalecer las relaciones entre ellos. Una buena novela para pasar el rato.
[a:P.D. James|344522|P.D. James|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1245013536p2/344522.jpg] is known mainly as a writer of detective and other crime stories, though she has occasionally ventured into other genres like fantasy. In this book, however, she combines her main genre, crime fiction, with two others -- the historical novel and fan fiction, or fanfic for short.
It is not often that established writers venture into the field of fan fiction, in which people write their own stories about the characters and settings created by other authors. In this case the author is [a:Jane Austen|1265|Jane Austen|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1282032472p2/1265.jpg] and the characters are taken from her novel [b:Pride and prejudice|1885|Pride and Prejudice|Jane Austen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320399351s/1885.jpg|3060926].
I thought I'd better re-read [b:Pride and prejudice|1885|Pride and Prejudice|Jane Austen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320399351s/1885.jpg|3060926] before reading this one, since this is a sequel and I'm glad I did so. [a:P.D. James|344522|P.D. James|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1245013536p2/344522.jpg] manages to keep the characters fairly faithful to Jane Austen's originals. The setting is reproduced faithfully too. …
[a:P.D. James|344522|P.D. James|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1245013536p2/344522.jpg] is known mainly as a writer of detective and other crime stories, though she has occasionally ventured into other genres like fantasy. In this book, however, she combines her main genre, crime fiction, with two others -- the historical novel and fan fiction, or fanfic for short.
It is not often that established writers venture into the field of fan fiction, in which people write their own stories about the characters and settings created by other authors. In this case the author is [a:Jane Austen|1265|Jane Austen|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1282032472p2/1265.jpg] and the characters are taken from her novel [b:Pride and prejudice|1885|Pride and Prejudice|Jane Austen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320399351s/1885.jpg|3060926].
I thought I'd better re-read [b:Pride and prejudice|1885|Pride and Prejudice|Jane Austen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320399351s/1885.jpg|3060926] before reading this one, since this is a sequel and I'm glad I did so. [a:P.D. James|344522|P.D. James|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1245013536p2/344522.jpg] manages to keep the characters fairly faithful to Jane Austen's originals. The setting is reproduced faithfully too. The plot is believable as a follow-on to [b:Pride and prejudice|1885|Pride and Prejudice|Jane Austen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320399351s/1885.jpg|3060926] so one of the purposes of fan fiction is fulfilled -- it enables readers to read more about characters they like and to follow their adventures.
What is missing, however, is the style and wit of Jane Austen. In contrast to [b:Pride and prejudice|1885|Pride and Prejudice|Jane Austen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320399351s/1885.jpg|3060926], [b:Death comes to Pemberley|12875355|Death Comes to Pemberley|P.D. James|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1318936579s/12875355.jpg|17822238] is a bit pedestrian. It's even a bit pedestrian compared with P.D. James's other novels. And perhaps that is why fan fiction rarely gets published; it seems easy, but it is actually more demanding if it is to be satisfying for anyone other than the person who wrote it. There seem to be several anachronisms, especially in vocabulary. I doubt that Jane Austen would ever have used the word "lifestyle", for example. I don't think the word even existed in her time.
So it is pleasant reading, and faithful to characters and setting, but no substitute for the real thing.
