Tag Archives: Adam Dalgliesh

#BookReview ‘The Private Patient’ by PD James #crime

Published in 2008, The Private Patient turned out to be the fourteenth and last in the Adam Dalgliesh detective series by PD James and there are flashes which make me think James knew that. It wasn’t to be her last novel, though. Death Comes to Pemberley, published in 2011, was to be her last. She died in 2014 at the age of 94. Is The Private Patient her best Dalgliesh novel? For me, no. I think the thirteenth in the series, The Lighthouse, is the best. Other favourites are Devices and Desires and Original Sin.
The Private Patient takes a while to get going. The first few chapters tell us about the victim, Rhoda Gradwyn, who we know will die at a private clinic in Dorset. Rhoda has a facial scar which she will have removed in surgery at Cheverell Manor. The intriguing thing for me is that Rhoda tells her surgeon she has no further need for the scar, but this seemed to get buried in the explanation of Rhoda’s background and that of the staff at the Manor. Of course, once the murder happens, the story moves rapidly. This is an old-fashioned English murder story set in a private cosmetic surgery clinic where it seems everyone has something to hide. The characterization is a little clichéd, perhaps James’ use of her own background is more evident here than in earlier novels.
We get more this time about Kate Miskin which I enjoyed, more beyond her origins which James has told us about before. If James had been younger, I can quite see that she would have retired Dalgliesh and started a new series based on Miskin.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Here are my reviews of the two Cordelia Gray mysteries:-
AN UNSUITABLE JOB FOR A WOMAN #CGRAY1
THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN #CGRAY2

And two other books by PD James:-
INNOCENT BLOOD
TIME TO BE IN EARNEST

If you like this, try:-
‘Eeny Meeny’ by MJ Arlidge [#1 HelenGrace]
‘The Vanished Bride’ by Bella Ellis [#1BronteMysteries]
‘Due Diligence’ by DJ Harrison [#1JennyParker]

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE PRIVATE PATIENT by PD James: the last Dalgliesh http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1VR via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Lighthouse’ by PD James #crime

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Over the years, the character of Commander Adam Dalgliesh has become a real person. Helped by the TV series of PD James detective novels, whenever I read a Dalgliesh book I see the face of actor Roy Marsden. The Lighthouse, the 13th in the series of 14, is perhaps her best. There is no doubt that as the series progressed, the writing acquired depths earning it the label ‘literary fiction’. A lot of the action is in the mind, intellectual detection. The Lighthouse is a long way from Cover Her Face. This is another closed room mystery. The room is an island off the North Cornish coast, a secure, secluded get-away-from-it-all holiday destination for politicians, celebrities and entrepreneurs. Dalgliesh, with his team Kate Miskin and Francis Benton-Smith, become residents on the island with its small number of suspects. Dead, is a famous writer, Nathan Oliver, found hanging by a rope from the railings of the lighthouse. Nothing, from this point, is as it seems. All the island’s guests, residents and staff could have a motive. Oliver was not generally liked. But you can rely on James to unwind a story which brings unexpected depths, difficulties and an unpredictable motive for murder. Many of the suspects are unlikeable, but unpleasant people are not necessarily capable of killing someone. Set against the island location, its isolation, mists, tides and birds, are the peculiarities of the residents and their reason for being on the island. Is that where the answer lies?
Quarantined on the island because of infectious illness, a second murder ups the stakes. Tangled throughout the detection are the relationships between Kate and Benton, Dalgliesh and girlfriend Emma, and the detail and politics of policing.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Here are my reviews of the two Cordelia Gray mysteries:-
AN UNSUITABLE JOB FOR A WOMAN #CGRAY1
THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN #CGRAY2

And two other books by PD James:-
INNOCENT BLOOD
TIME TO BE IN EARNEST

If you like this, try:-
‘The Blood Detective’ by Dan Waddell
‘Jellyfish’ by Lev D Lewis
‘The Silent Twin’ by Caroline Mitchell

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE LIGHTHOUSE by PD James via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1VN

#BookReview ‘The Murder Room’ by PD James #crime

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Written in 2003 The Murder Room, the 12th in the Adam Dalgliesh crime fiction series by PD James, is preceded by an excerpt from TS Eliot’s poem ‘Burnt Norton’:
‘Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.’ Time is a theme layered throughout this book. Its setting is the Dupayne Museum on Hampstead Heath, so historical time is represented by the exhibits at the museum. Time, recently passed, is examined and re-examined as part of the murder investigation. Time future, is represented by the theme of Adam Dalgliesh’s love for Emma and his courtship of her, a path not easy or untroubled.
Like all Dalgliesh novels, murder happens within a tight community. The Dupayne Museum has a small community of owners, staff and visitors. At first glance the victims are not clearly attached to the museum, but this is a James novel: of course they are, we just don’t know how yet.
The murder doesn’t happen for quite a while as James takes her time introducing us to the circle of potential victims and criminals, their connection to the museum and their life outside it. There is an air of the past about it, as if it was written in the thirties, an antidote to modern fast-paced modern crime novels so in itself representing a portrait of changing crime fiction. Time is given to characterization, setting, motivation, and not to dramatic action scenes: more Christie and Sayers than James or Rankin.
In the course of reading The Murder Room, I considered why I enjoy reading detective novels and what I take from them. I like the mystery, the tension of the chase, the fitting together of disparate elements. I do not like violence, graphic sex or language. But most of all, I like the examination of human nature, the contradictions, the surprises, the privacy of the mind laid bare. PD James excels at all of this; she remains my favourite author of crime fiction, and Adam Dalgliesh my favourite detective.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Click the title to sample the first paragraph of THE MURDER ROOM.

Here are my reviews of the two Cordelia Gray mysteries:-
AN UNSUITABLE JOB FOR A WOMAN #CGRAY1
THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN #CGRAY2

And two other books by PD James:-
INNOCENT BLOOD
TIME TO BE IN EARNEST

If you like this, try:-
‘The Shadows in the Street’ by Susan Hill
‘Due Diligence’ by DJ Harrison
‘The Truth Will Out’ by Jane Isaac

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE MURDER ROOM by PD James via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1QP

#BookReview ‘Death in Holy Orders’ by PD James #crime

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A sandy cliff collapses, a theology student dies and his father suspects foul play. And so Adam Dalgliesh returns to St Anselm’s, the theological college which he visited as a boy. And so Death in Holy Orders, eleventh in the detective series by PD James, is cut through with Dalgiesh’s memories. “When secrets are unspoken and unwritten they are lodged safely in the mind, but writing them down seems to let them loose and give them the power to spread like pollen on the air and enter into other minds.” So writes college housekeeper Margaret Munroe in her diary. She found Ronald’s body and was advised by Father Martin, a priest at St Anselm’s, to write about her experience as a way of coming to terms with what happened. Does she know a secret and write it in her diary?
Ronald’s death is declared accidental, a second staff member dies naturally. But then there is a third death and Dalgliesh is put in charge of the case. His familiar team of Kate Miskin and Piers Tarrant are accepted uneasily into this closed community which is secretly worried the building houses a murderer, but outwardly tries to behave as normal. Included in the mix of clergy, teachers and students are several guests including a convalescing detective, a researcher and a university lecturer. At the heart of the mystery is the future of St Anselm’s and, if it is to close, who will inherit the building and its riches.
The motives are various, the suspects numerous. PD James plots with skill to keep us guessing, whilst layering the story with poetry, nature, art, theology and her observations of human nature.
Excellent.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Here are my reviews of the two Cordelia Gray mysteries:-
AN UNSUITABLE JOB FOR A WOMAN #CGRAY1
THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN #CGRAY2

And two other books by PD James:-
INNOCENT BLOOD
TIME TO BE IN EARNEST

If you like this, try:-
‘The Various Haunts of Men’ by Susan Hill
‘The Quarry’ by Iain Banks
‘Wilderness’ by Campbell Hart

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview DEATH IN HOLY ORDERS by PD James http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1ND via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘A Certain Justice’ by PD James #crime

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I have read A Certain Justice before, many years ago, my paperback is old. Reading an Adam Dalgliesh story is like slipping into a favourite pair of old jeans. It’s that feeling you get with an assured author: you are in safe hands. It is mutual trust. The author trusts the reader to make connections and ‘get’ references without having to spell everything out, the reader trusts the author to deliver a satisfying story without distractions of blind alleys. This applies, especially I think, to crime fiction. I remembered the character of Venetia Aldridge, the murder victim, and of course know detective Adam Dalgliesh, but I had forgotten the identity of the killer. One of the pleasures of a PD James novel for me is the cultural background and the depth of knowledge she demonstrates. Dalgliesh is a poet, he is fond of architecture, of music, of the countryside. The murder of Venetia Aldridge, a barrister, takes place in her Chambers, and so as the reader I became involved in the world of law, of trial by jury, of guilty v not guilty, of revenge, of abandonment, hate and lingering resentment.
James takes her time to establish the characters involved, Venetia Aldridge herself, but also everyone around her, the other lawyers, her colleagues in Chambers, her daughter, and the people involved in her recent trials. A PD James crime novel is not short, but each character sketch is a potential murderer, accomplice, witness or, another murder victim. So it pays for the reader to pay attention. James is a master storyteller.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Here are my reviews of the two Cordelia Gray mysteries:-
AN UNSUITABLE JOB FOR A WOMAN #CGRAY1
THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN #CGRAY2

And two other books by PD James:-
INNOCENT BLOOD
TIME TO BE IN EARNEST

If you like this, try:-
‘The Pure in Heart’ by Susan Hill
‘Homeland’ by Clare Francis
‘Stolen Child’ by Laura Elliot

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A CERTAIN JUSTICE by PD James via @SandraDanby https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-4cQ

#BookReview ‘Original Sin’ by PD James #crime

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I am never disappointed when I pick up an Adam Dalgliesh mystery, I know what I will get with PD James: excellent plotting, thoughtful characterization, an impossible maze of clues, patient description and scene setting, and deep literary references. Original Sin delivers, and it also gives life to London and the River Thames. This is the ninth outing for James’ poet detective, Commander Dalgliesh, the taciturn, thoughtful, policeman with the stare which is as hard-as-nails. His colleagues respect him but cannot say they either know or like him. He is mysterious, and thereby hangs the fascination he holds for readers.
The first death at Peverell Press, a traditional publishing house located in a Venetian-style house beside the Thames, is a suicide, the body found by a new employee. The same employee has the misfortune to find another dead body later in the book. There are a lot of dead bodies at Peverell Press, and there is also a prankster. Proofs wrongly amended, illustrations disappear, appointments cancelled. When the managing director, Gerard Etienne, is found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning, upstairs in the little archive room, the death is considered suspicious enough to call in the police.
This is a complicated web of a story, James weaves together the current and back stories of the key Peverell employees, their alibis, their affairs and petty spats, their lies and secrets. Is the murderer and the prankster the same person, and what of the suicide? Is that connected? Essentially the building where Peverell Press is based, Innocent House, provides a closed-room mystery: the murderer must come from within the company but although some are haughty, others unlikeable and the rest just gossips, someone there must have done it.
Did I guess? No. The motive is fascinating, though I could have done with a few more hints earlier on.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK
Click the title to sample the first paragraph of ORIGINAL SIN.

Here are my reviews of the two Cordelia Gray mysteries:-
AN UNSUITABLE JOB FOR A WOMAN #CGRAY1
THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN #CGRAY2

And two other books by PD James:-
INNOCENT BLOOD
TIME TO BE IN EARNEST

If you like this, try:-
‘The Blind Man of Seville’ by Robert Wilson
‘A Death in Valencia‘ by Jason Webster
‘I Refuse‘ by Per Petterson

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview ORIGINAL SIN by PD James via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1CX

#BookReview ‘Devices and Desires’ by PD James #crime

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Perhaps of all the Adam Dalgliesh books so far, and Devices and Desires is the eighth in the series by PD James, this is the one with the strongest sense of place. The East Anglian coast: a bare, windswept, desolate landscape, its coastline dominated by Larksoken nuclear power station, it is a tight-knit community where there are few secrets and no hiding places. The power station’s staff, its purpose and existence are at the centre of this murder mystery. Dalgiesh’s Aunt Jane has died and he visits her house, which he has inherited, both as a break after the Berowne murder [featured in the previous book, A Taste for Death] and as an opportunity to consider the house and decide whether to sell it or keep it. Meanwhile, the community on the remote coastal headline is being terrorized by a serial killer, The Whistler. And, of course, a few pages into the book, The Whistler kills. Or does he?
This is a magnificent mystery, I challenge anyone to work out the plot twists and turns. But it is not just James’ talent at plotting which sets this book aside from its predecessors. It is thoughtful, considered, and very moving: about death, love, and all the big human emotions.
I wonder how far ahead James planned her books. Reading A Taste for Death, I noticed that Book Four [of seven] is called ‘Devices and Desires’. Evidently James liked the title and used it for this eighth, and she repeats the phrase several times throughout the book: “Here the past and present fused and her own life, with its trivial devices and desires, seemed only an insignificant moment in the long history of the headland.”
I read this book many years ago and still have my original copy [below], I think I prefer this cover design. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Here are my reviews of the two Cordelia Gray mysteries:-
AN UNSUITABLE JOB FOR A WOMAN #CGRAY1
THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN #CGRAY2

And two other books by PD James:-
INNOCENT BLOOD
TIME TO BE IN EARNEST

If you like this, try:-
Or The Bull Kills You by Jason Webster
The Accident by CL Taylor
Wolf by Mo Hayder

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview DEVICES AND DESIRES by PD James via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Nc

#BookReview ‘A Taste for Death’ by PD James #crime

19 Replies

Two men found dead in a church: murder and suicide, or double murder? One a politician, the other a tramp. Because A Taste for Death is a PD James novel we know it is murder, but we don’t know why or who by. A Taste for Death differs from the preceding six in this series because of its length [656 pages], compared with its predecessor Death of an Expert Witness [400 pages]. For this we get extra plot twist and turns, more detail about the potential suspects, more internal monologues, and more of the literary depth which characterizes the later Dalgliesh novels. Some readers will appreciate the extra detail, others may prefer a quicker moving, shorter, crime novel.
The story is book-ended by the meeting and subsequent relationship between Miss Emily Wharton and 10-year old Darren Wilkes. They find the bodies and after that their very human story is lost in the swirl of police procedure and suspicion, accusations and alibis.
Commander Adam Dalgliesh heads up a new squad to solve serious crimes which need sensitive handling. This murder of Sir Paul Berowne, a government minister, is the squad’s first case. On Dalgliesh’s team is John Massingham, familiar from earlier novels, and newcomer Kate Miskin. Miskin’s storyline is a welcome female perspective in a male-dominated job [this book was first published in 1986].
This was the first novel I read, I still have the original paperback [below]. Certainly I have a clear memory of a man called Berowne murdered in a church. It was the beginning of a fondness for Adam Dalgliesh and I have read every one of his series since.

Here are my reviews of the two Cordelia Gray mysteries:-
AN UNSUITABLE JOB FOR A WOMAN #CGRAY1
THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN #CGRAY2

And two other books by PD James:-
INNOCENT BLOOD
TIME TO BE IN EARNEST

If you like this, try:
The Killing Lessons by Saul Black
One False Move by Harlan Coben
No Other Darkness by Sarah Hilary

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A TASTE FOR DEATH by PD James via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1MD

#BookReview ‘Death of an Expert Witness’ by PD James #crime

19 Replies

What a great title. Ask most people to name a PD James novel, and this is probably it. Death of an Expert Witness has a gloriously convoluted plot surrounding a Fens village, a forensic science laboratory, and a tightly-knit community linked in ways the reader cannot forsee. The clues are there but each is so fleetingly mentioned, so parsimonious, and so intertwined, that you will forget each and discount its importance. When the senior biologist at Hoggatt’s Laboratory is found dead, New Scotland Yard is called in. Commander Adam Dalgliesh arrives with Detective Inspector John Massingham; it is not the easiest of working partnerships, another layer of grit added to the oyster.
PD James’ observations are at times heart-rending. Of a victim’s elderly father: “The old man sat there, staring straight ahead. His hands, with the long fingers like those of his son, but with their skin dry and stained as withered leavers, hung heavily between his knees, grotesquely large for the brittle wrists.”
The technical detail, at which James is always so reliable, is interleaved here with the writing style I associate with the later Dalgliesh books. On his way to interview a bereaved relative, Dalgliesh stands on high ground and looks towards Hoggatt’s Laboratory. “Under the turbulent painter’s sky, with its changing clusters of white, grey and purple cumulus clouds massing against the pale azure blue of the upper air, and the sunlight moving fitfully across the fields and flittering on roofs and windows, it looked like an isolated frontier outpost, but welcoming, prosperous and secure. Violent death might lurk eastwards in the dark fenlands, but surely not under these neat domestic roofs.” But regular crime readers know that is exactly where crime lurks.
Dalgliesh’s observations, about the process of life and death, the motivation of murder, the role of life of art, of religion, of poetry, are becoming denser in the transition which elevated PD James’ books from crime fiction to literary fiction. There is so much more in her books than murder. “Death, thought Dalgliesh, obliterates family resemblance as it does personality; there is no affinity between the living and the dead.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Here are my reviews of the two Cordelia Gray mysteries:-
AN UNSUITABLE JOB FOR A WOMAN #CGRAY1
THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN #CGRAY2

And two other books by PD James:-
INNOCENT BLOOD
TIME TO BE IN EARNEST

If you like this, try:-
‘The Killing Lessons’ by Saul Black
‘The Guest List’ by Lucy Foley
‘The Mystery of Three Quarters’ by Sophie Hannah [#3 Poirot]

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview DEATH OF AN EXPERT WITNESS by PD James http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Ff via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Black Tower’ by PD James #crime

19 Replies

The Black Tower is a sinister mystery by PD James, partly location, and partly the feeling that Dalgliesh is not operating at the full capacity of his deductive powers. He has been ill and goes to Dorset to convalesce, to visit an elderly friend. His love and energy for detecting are muted, there are hints he may not continue. On arrival in Dorset he finds his friend, Father Baddeley has died. Dalgliesh is inevitably drawn into the daily life at Toynton Hall, the care home at which the Father was chaplain. All is not as it seems. Baddeley’s was not the first death. But Dalgliesh looks at clues and is unusually reticent, unmotivated, tired.
This is an intricate story set in a strange community with overtones of religious fervour, financial difficulties, disabilities not clearly explained, relationships tangled, past stories and resentments lurking beneath the surface.
I am re-reading PD James in order and with this, the fifth in the series, she seems to be getting into the rhythm which those familiar with the last of the Dalgliesh books will recognise. Dalgliesh is oddly denuded in this book, giving us an insight into his character we have not have seen before, we see beneath the professional face: he has been ill, is tired, less patient, and the mask of his profession sometimes slips. Fascinating, a hint of the detective into which he will evolve in the later books.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Here are my reviews of the two Cordelia Gray mysteries:-
AN UNSUITABLE JOB FOR A WOMAN #CGRAY1
THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN #CGRAY2

And two other books by PD James:-
INNOCENT BLOOD
TIME TO BE IN EARNEST

If you like crime fiction, try these:-
‘Eeny Meeny’ by MJ Arlidge
‘Wilderness’ by Campbell Hart
‘Dead Simple’ by Peter James

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE BLACK TOWER by PD James via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1EY

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SANDRA DANBY'S BOOK REVIEWS

Sharing thoughts on the books I read, new authors, favourite authors, classics re-visisted

Tag Archives: Adam Dalgliesh

#BookReview ‘The Private Patient’ by PD James #crime

#BookReview ‘The Lighthouse’ by PD James #crime

#BookReview ‘The Murder Room’ by PD James #crime

#BookReview ‘Death in Holy Orders’ by PD James #crime

#BookReview ‘A Certain Justice’ by PD James #crime

#BookReview ‘Original Sin’ by PD James #crime

#BookReview ‘Devices and Desires’ by PD James #crime

#BookReview ‘A Taste for Death’ by PD James #crime

#BookReview ‘Death of an Expert Witness’ by PD James #crime

#BookReview ‘The Black Tower’ by PD James #crime

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