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Claudia Gray Interview – Jane Austen and Murder
Author Guest , Interviews / May 4, 2022

Miranda Owen: As soon as I read the description for THE MURDER OF MR. WICKHAM, I was immediately intrigued. I love Jane Austen, and I love mysteries. What inspired you to write this book?    Claudia Gray: Make no mistake – I am a huge PD James fan – but when I first read Death Comes to Pemberley a decade ago, I couldn’t imagine why she cast Denny as the victim. Has anyone ever worried about what happened to Denny? Wickham was right there, being awful, surrounded by people who had very strong motives to loathe the guy. Eventually I decided, maybe I should stop wishing this very good book would be something it isn’t. If I think some novelist should kill off Mr. Wickham, then I’m going to do it myself.    MO: I love the idea of playing around with characters from a classic novel and putting them in different circumstances and mixing characters from different works by the same author. Is this something you’d do again with a different author? Like Charles Dickens? Do you think you stayed true to the essence of the characters while giving them a new spin?    CG: My hope is that…