Death comes to Pemberley

PD James has written an account of a murder investigation and subsequent trial set in the realms of Jane Austen's Pemberley, the home of Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy.

It is the evening before Lady Anne's Ball when an eratically driven coach carrying an hysterical Lydia Wickham arrives at Pemberley. Lydia is convinced that her husband has been murdered. Thus the tranquility at Pemberley is interrupted. Darcy, Colonel Fizwilliam and the young lawyer, Alverston, go into the woods to investigate Lydia's claims to find Wickham alive but bending over the body of Captain Denny.

PD James obviously enjoys the opportunity to set a crime story in the world created by Jane Austen and tries to remain faithful to the characters that Jane Austean created.