Death at Pemberly

[chocolatepot]

Hm, I might order this from the library based on the NYT review. Specifically:

"But little social credit can be expected from the brutal dispatch of an undistinguished captain of the infantry, without money or breeding to render him interesting."
...
The greatest pleasure of this novel is its unforced, effortless, effective voice. James hasn’t written in florid cod-­Regency whorls, the overblown language other mimics so often employ. Not infrequently, while reading Death Comes to Pemberley, one succumbs to the impression that it is Austen herself at the keyboard. When Lizzy observes her girlhood friend Charlotte Lucas deftly wrangling her pompous, tedious husband, Mr. Collins (whose hand Lizzy had spurned), her admiration for Charlotte’s artfulness could scarcely be improved upon by the woman who dreamed these characters up: "She consistently congratulated him on qualities he did not possess in the hope that, flattered by her praise and approval, he would acquire them."

It just sounds like it has Austen's edge that so many sequels/imitators lack. But at the same time the plot doesn't really grab me. Maybe after I finish the first Lymond book (YES I AM TRYING FOR THE THIRD TIME. I'm already twice as far as I was last time).