Book Review | Such a shame, Mr Darcy!

We now leave the the foggy streets of London and take a trip to the Pemberly estate to read Death Comes To Pemberly by P D James. Have you ever wondered how Lizzie and Darcy got on after they got over their pride and buried their prejudice. (Couldn't resist, sorry) Were they happy and did they fall deeply in love? Did Lizzie honestly marry him for love because I always suspected it was money? Did Jane find out that Mr Bingley was really a closet cross dresser? I always wished that Austen wrote a sequel and here we have it. Not by Austen but by the world's leading mistress of crime - P D James. Introducing her would take an entire post, so suffice to say that if there was going to be a crime at Pemberly, she should be the best person to write. It seems not.

The Guardian's Review made me chuckle!

Despite a few lukewarm reviews and a particularly sardonic one from The Guardian , I insisted on buying it. She is after all, P D James!

It all begins at Pemberly on the night leading up to a grand ball thrown in the honor of Mr Darcy's mother. James spends an inordinate amount of time summarizing a story that we all know so bloody well that by the fifth page you you want to say  - get on with it. Finally she does. That fateful night, a series of circumstances culminate in a murder involving that villain Wickham and arrest of a possibly innocent man. What transpires after is a slow detective story that plods along, there were no detectives or resources at the time to actually solve a crime. So it falls upon Darcy and a few old magistrates to get to the bottom of this most horrible incident that has befallen upon the great house of Pemberly. What conjecture follows involves a series of unnecessary summaries of the actual event. After a while I found myself thinking, "If I hear that one more time, I will throw this book." But I couldn't because it was an IPAD; The dark side of technology. Through it all we are never given a glimpse into the marriage we so want to be a part of or the character that made Ms Bennet so formidable. She seems to have morphed into this nervous whiny society woman that needs valium. Then there is the revelation of Mr Darcy's name but really, do we need to have another character with the same name? 

The silver lining however is Mr Darcy. This is really his story and I think that is where James is most comfortable. You realize that she always understood men better. She invests time in getting to know this man and pushing his buttons so that through the plot and dialogue, what little there is, we see various shades of his otherwise stoic character come to life. His tenderness is sublime along with his insight into himself and how his weaknesses have obstructed him from actually solving the case. 

The usual cast features to some degree, including the charming Mr Bennet. The ninety-year old P D James justified this book in an interview by saying that she did not want to die in the middle of a Dalgliesh story and really wanted to write something fun. While I hope she had a complete ball because her customary technique with plot fails to deliver here as this was a book that needed some fluffy emotional dialogue and James, always preferring to keep personal feelings at the periphery, struggles to make mundane conversation. Any glimpse we had of Dalgliesh's personal life was akin to a large bar of luxurious dark chocolate, not to be overindulged in. In this case, we needed more drama, more dialogue, more masala since the deduction is quite elementary and really Pride and Prejudice was after all one of the best chick-lits of all time.

Verdict - Only for  die hard PD James fans and those who just have to read any novel involving Darcy. I think it's worth it for him. Was never a fan of Lizzie anyway!
You can buy Death comes to Pemberly here.

My suggestion is to buy yourself a beautiful hardback edition of Pride and Prejudice, worth every penny instead.

And for a taste of PD James at her best, check out our post Rainy Day Reads

RecommendedReads | Rainy Day Reads

Can you hear that? It's the wind and it's whistling like a banshee on helium. Reshma expects a coconut tree to come through her french windows soon. So we don't suppose there's much for you to do except curl up in your blanket, hot tea close at hand, for some comfort reading. Unless of course, you much prefer the images of Gandhians and hurricanes flashing across your television screen....

AFSHA SELECTS
Calvin and Hobbes It's a Magical World 
"1..2...3... SNOW!" The thing I love about Calvin is that he'd give anything for snow. And most of the time it isn't only because of the possibility of a day off from school. I sort of know how he feels, especially when summer's about to end and I start praying for rain every day. This year, I even offered the rain gods a coconut! And then the rains arrived. This pleased people immensely until they forgot about the sweltering heat and humid sheets. Calvin, on the other hand, is never seen dissing the snow, no matter how cold it gets which is why I've decided that this year, I won't dis the rain no matter how wet it gets. So grab a copy of It's A Magical World and loose yourself in the life and mind of a seemingly cynical little boy on a quest to find joy in everything around him, whether he likes it or not.  

RESHMA SELECTS

PD James : The Lighthouse

She is undoubtedly the reigning queen of British crime fiction and what better way to toast to perfect English weather. A working peer, 85 year old James never betrays her age as her tone and diction seem as contemporary as a thirty year old crime writer. Besides her Inspector Adam Dalgliesh, the stoic poet that makes your heart flutter, has been made for every age. This is the perfect rainy day novel. As the wind howls outside your window, you will be transported to a spooky island off Cornwall in England, where a private estate taken over by a charitable trust is in the throes of, MURDER. A world renowned writer is found hanging from the top most railings of a lighthouse and so begins a convoluted hunt for the killer. As always, James is never predictable or disrespectful of death. The island takes the atmosphere of a snowed in house. As the Inspector and his team are holed up in this little fictional island, painstakingly drawn characters- an editor, a subjugated daughter and other eccentrics , plot around them. You know know you are not about to get off this ride until the last page. For those of you who are P D James devotees, this is the one where the Inspector struggles with love and his philosophies and finds himself lost for answers. For first timers, it is the beginning of your love affair with the queen of british crime. If you have an IPAD or a Kindle, download it now and settle in with a hot cuppa tea. The blistering rain is only getting started.