Tirzah Price’s In Want of a Suspect is a historical reimagining of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice that sees Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy in their late teens and early twenties, respectively. In these new incarnations, they are mutually smitten, fledgling solicitors from rival law firms Longbourn & Sons and Pemberley & Associates.

Lizzie is the first female solicitor in Price’s version of Austen’s Regency England. She’s outspoken, unflappable, inquisitive, and a bit headstrong. Lizzie is dedicated to her work, collects strays, skirts the rules of propriety to get to the truth, and doesn’t always heed danger. She enjoys conferring with Darcy and pushes him out of his comfort zone. Darcy is on the barrister track and is the elder Mr. Darcy’s heir. Like Lizzie, he’s dedicated to his work but he’s not averse to being roped into Lizzie’s investigations and misadventures. Darcy is reticent, direct, observant, loyal, and gradually becoming less inflexible. He’s supportive of Lizzie and challenges her in positive ways. The interplay of their different, yet complementary personalities is one of the most charming and memorable highlights of this book and Austen’s original.

Lizzie and Darcy’s romance blooms while they collaborate on various murder cases, starting with the George Hurst murder case in Price’s Pride and Premeditation, in which Lizzie and Darcy worked together to prove Charles Bingley’s innocence of murdering his feckless brother-in-law. In Want of a Suspect picks up a year after the events in Pride and Premeditation, introducing readers to a new mystery that involves a warehouse fire and Darcy’s former sweetheart.

While en route to meet with one of Lizzie’s clients, Lizzie and Darcy witness a fire erupt at said client’s warehouse. The fire claims the life of Simon Mullins, the brother of Lizzie’s client Jack Mullins. Grief-stricken and troubled by the fire’s suspicious nature, Jack tasks Lizzie with investigating its source and Simon’s killer. Lizzie teams up with Darcy once more and the two discover a certain tall, dark-haired young woman is somehow connected to the crime scene. Darcy is mortified by the inevitable meeting between Lizzie and Josette Beaufort, a wealthy, half-French and half-English lady who rejected Darcy’s marriage proposal a few years earlier. It seems either Josette or her cousin, Leticia Cavendish, may be behind the warehouse fire or associated with the culprit. Their search for Simon’s killer also raises questions about the Mullins brothers and their own activities within the warehouse. The killer targets a second victim and before long, Lizzie and Darcy find themselves in the killer’s crosshairs.

Price was inspired by both Jane Austen and Agatha Christie. In Want of a Suspect is a bit like P.D. James’s Death Comes to Pemberley crossed with Brittany Cavallaro’s A Study in Charlotte. Its lighthearted approach to puzzling out its central murder mysteries is similar to the vibes of cozy mystery shows Death in Paradise, Father Brown, and Only Murders in the Building. In Want of a Suspect may appeal to fans of Maureen Johnson’s Death at Morning House and Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson’s The Agathas.

Although not technically fantasy, the book is a little fantastical in an expansive and escapist sense due to liberties Price takes with the source material and its historical context. In Want of a Suspect is a sweet and delightful page-turner, perfect for a Pi Day “Pie and Prejudice” celebration.

LOGLINE: In a young adult historical retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy are now Lizzie and Darcy, infatuated solicitors at competing law firms. When the case of a suspicious warehouse fire leads them to a woman from Darcy’s past, the pair must contend with mounting unanswered questions and a rising body count.

MOOD: A delightful and cozy genre mash-up that reimagines Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy as young lawyers with sparkling chemistry on a quest to solve an incendiary murder case.

TITLE: In Want of a Suspect (Book #1 in the A Lizzie & Darcy Mystery series)

AUTHOR: Tirzah Price

GENRE: Young Adult Fiction, Historical Fiction, Retellings, Mystery, Romance

PUB DATE: 12 November 2024

PUBLISHER: Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins

LENGTH: 352 pages