Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 8 December 2011.
Inspired by a lifelong passion for the work of Jane Austen, PD James masterfully recreates the world of Pride and Prejudice, and combines it with the excitement and suspense of a brilliantly-crafted crime story.
'Calling all Bridgerton fans! We have your next period drama obsession.' Cosmopolitan The world is classic Jane Austen. The mystery is vintage P.D. James.
In their six years of marriage, Elizabeth and Darcy have forged a peaceful, happy life for their family at Pemberley, Darcy's impressive estate.
But on the eve of their annual autumn ball, chaos descends. A chaise appears, rocking down the path from Pemberley's wild woodland. As it pulls up, Lydia Wickham - Elizabeth Bennet's younger, unreliable sister - stumbles out screaming that her husband 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 . . .
'Dazzling . . . combines the grace of Jane Austen with the pace of a thriller.' Sunday Express 'Brimming with astute appreciation, inventiveness and narrative zest.' Sunday Times 'Takes Pride and Prejudice to places it never dreamed of.'Evening Standard
**Now a major Netflix series starring Matthew Rhys, Anna Maxwell Martin, Jenna Coleman and James Norton**
What readers are saying . . . 'Wonderful . . . I absolutely loved this book.' 'A must read for fans of the Austen novels.' 'Fantastic - almost seamless - continuation of the Darcy tale . . . enough twists and turns to keep you on your toes.' 'It will sweep you away.' 'Impossible to put down!'
P. D. James was born in Oxford in 1920 and educated at Cambridge High School for Girls. From 1949 to 1968 she worked in the National Health Service and subsequently in the Home Office, first in the Police Department and later in the Criminal Policy Department. All that experience has been used in her novels. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Royal Society of the Arts and has served as a Governor of the BBC, a member of the Arts Council, where she was Chairman of its Literary Advisory Panel, on the Board of the British Council and as a magistrate in Middlesex and London. She has won awards for crime writing in Britain, America, Italy and Scandinavia, including the Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award. She has received honorary degrees from seven British universities, was awarded an OBE in 1983 and was created a life peer in 1991. In 1997 she was elected President of the Society of Authors.
