From Linda Wertheimer's 2011 interview with British mystery writer P.D. James:
LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: The British mystery writer P.D. James is best known for her creation, Adam Dalgliesh. The Scotland Yard detective is pensive and private, shaped by his own personal tragedy. He populates many of P.D. James's stories, but not her latest. In her new book, P.D. James inhabits the world of Jane Austen, specifically "Pride and Prejudice."
"Death Comes to Pemberley" picks up with Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy married and settled in to Darcy's ancestral home. But, as the name suggests, it's not quite happily ever after.
I asked P.D. James why she decided to bring death to Pemberley.
P.D. JAMES: I had this idea at the back of my mind that I'd like to combine my two great enthusiasms. One is for the novels of Jane Austen, and the second is for writing detective fiction. And it would be rather fun to marry them and set a book in Pemberley, six years after Elizabeth and Darcy had married, when everything is going very well and they're very happy, and they have to healthy and handsome boys in their nursery; and life is peaceful and ordered and, of course, rich and prosperous.
And then comes the eruption of a rather ghastly murder...[read on or listen to the interview]
--Marshal Zeringue