Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James.
Title: Death Comes to Pemberley.
Author: P.D. James.
Genre: Fiction, mystery, crime, romance.
Country: U.K.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 2011.
Summary: The novel begins in October, 1803, six years after the events in Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth and Darcy have forged a peaceful, happy life for their family at Pemberley, Darcy’s impressive estate. Her father is a regular visitor; her sister Jane and her husband, Bingley, live nearby; the marriage prospects for Darcy’s sister, Georgiana, are favourable. And preparations for their annual autumn ball are proceeding apace. But on the eve of the ball, chaos descends. Lydia Wickham, Elizabeth’s disgraced sister who, with her husband, has been barred from the estate, arrives in a hysterical state, shrieking that Wickham has been murdered. Plunged into frightening mystery and a lurid murder trial, the lives of Pemberley’s owners and servants alike may never be the same.
My rating: 7.5/10.
My review:
♥ Elizabeth said, “The early favours shown may have been to an extent imprudent and it is always easy to question the judgement of others in matters of which we may be imperfectly informed.”
♥ She thought, Here we sit at the beginning of a new century, citizens of the most civilized country in Europe, surrounded by the splendour of its craftsmanship, its art and the books which enshrine its literature, while outside there is another world which wealth and education and privilege can keep from us, a world in which men are as violent and destructive as is the animal world. Perhaps even the most fortunate of us will not be able to ignore it and keep it at bay forever.
♥ Since guilt is more commonly felt by the innocent than by the culpable, the atmosphere was less of expectation than of anxiety.
♥ “I can assure you there is nothing more powerful than the English when seized with righteous indignation.”
♥ It is never so difficult to congratulate a friend on her good fortune than when that fortune appears undeserved.
♥ The local prison at Lambton, unlike the country one at Derby, was more intimidating from the outside than it was within, presumably having been built on the belief that public money was better saved by discouraging would-be offenders than by disheartening them once they were incarcerated.
♥ That young man is something of a radical, I hear, despite being heir to an ancient barony, but he is undoubtedly a clever and successful lawyer, although it is time he found himself a wife and settled on his estate. The peace and security of England depends on gentlemen living in their houses as good landlords and masters, considerate to their servants, charitable to the poor, and ready, as justices of the peace, to take a full part in promoting peace and order in their communities. If the aristocrats of France had lived thus, there would never have been a revolution.
♥ “We have all sinned, Mr. Darcy, and we cannot look for mercy without showing it in our lives.”
♥ He knew how much the success of social life depended on the comfortable expectation of approved conventions and had been schooled since childhood in the actions expected of gentlemen. Admittedly his mother had from time to time voiced a gentler view, that good manners consisted essentially in a proper regard for the other person's feelings, particularly if in society with someone from a lower class…
♥ “I suspect it seldom answers when there are two women in one kitchen.”