Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James

This mystery should delight Austen-philes. It felt true to the characters in Pride and Prejudice for the most part; I found Colonel Fitzwilliam a little off, and maybe Darcy himself. The appearances by Jane, Bingley, and Mr. Bennet were cameos at best. I appreciated nods to Austen's other books (as if they were all part of the same fictional universe). The mystery itself was a tad clunky--the book showed its hand too soon, I think, by the way it divided its attention. I like being able to solve the mystery, on the one hand, but on the other, not as I did in this book. There was a lot of careful attention to backstory (Mrs. Younge, in particular, gets some surprising developments). Enjoyable, but not really great either.

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