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Summary
Summary
When the quiet Little Vestry of St. Matthew's Church becomes the blood-soaked scene of a double murder, Scotland Yard Commander Adam Dalgliesh faces an intriguing conundrum: How did an upper-crust Minister come to lie, slit throat to slit throat, next to a neighborhood derelict of the lowest order? Challenged with the investigation of a crime that appears to have endless motives, Dalgliesh explores the sinister web spun around a half-burnt diary and a violet-eyed widow who is pregnant and full of malice--all the while hoping to fill the gap of logic that joined these two disparate men in bright red death. . . . "From the Paperback edition."
Author Notes
P. D. James, pseudonym of Phyllis Dorothy James White, was born on August 3, 1920 in Oxford, England. During World War II, she served as a Red Cross nurse. She worked in administration for 19 years with the National Health Service. After the death of her husband in 1964, she took a Civil Service examination and became an administrator in the forensic science and criminal law divisions of the Department of Home Affairs. She spent 30 years in British Civil Service. She became Baroness James of Holland Park in 1991.
Her first novel, Cover Her Face, was published in 1962. She wrote approximately 20 books during her lifetime including the Adam Dalgliesh Mystery series, the Cordelia Gray Mystery series, and Death Comes to Pemberley. She became a full-time writer in 1979. Three titles in the Adam Dalgliesh Mystery series received the Silver Dagger award--Shroud for a Nightingale, The Black Tower, and A Taste for Death. In 2000, she published her autobiography, Time to Be in Earnest. Her dystopian novel, The Children of Men, was adapted into a movie in 2006. She received the Diamond Dagger award for lifetime achievement. She died on November 27, 2014 at the age of 94.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In her latest Commander Adam Dalgliesh detective novel, James subtly deepens the complexities of his personality, making him an ever more credible protagonist. When two bodies are discovered with their throats slashed in a London church, Dalgleish is called upon to solve the case. One victim is Sir Paul Berowne, former Minister of the Crown; the other is a tramp accustomed to sleeping in the church vestibule. It seems that these deaths may be tied to those of two young women who have recently been employed in the Berowne household. Dalgleish feels an unusual empathy in this case; he had known Berowne and sensed several parallels in their lives. This sense of compassion is one of the things that distinguishes James's novels. In delving into what she calls ``the fascination of character,'' she makes each actor in the drama memorable. The characters here read Trollope and Philip Larkin; they are knowledgeable about architecture and art. Yet James's civilized digressions do not detract from the suspense of the plot. She does not employ horrific details for shock effect, but her step-by-step description of procedural details, particularly those of forensic medicine, totally immerse readers in the investigation. Literate readers who have not yet made Adam Dalgliesh's acquaintance should rush to the bookstores for this one. 100,000 first printing; BOMC main selection; author tour. (November 1 (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Like her other recent, long mysteries (Death of an Expert Witness, The Skull Beneath the Skin), James' new 480-page novel is absorbing reading, chockablock with arresting characters, edgily compelling conversation, and grainy atmospherics. Also like those books, however, it isn't a first-rate-mystery--and its final chapters, suddenly reaching for ambitious psychological melodrama (reminiscent of Ruth Rendell), show James' talent straining against the genre limitations. Sir Paul Berowne, a former Crown minister who has recently had some sort of religious awakening, is found bloodily dead in the vestry of a humble London church; nearby is the body of a similarly slain tramp. Scotland Yard's first impression? That an unhinged Berowne killed the tramp, then committed suicide. But poet-sleuth Adam Dalgliesh, leading a special squad, is not convinced. And his full-scale investigation focuses primarily on the layered secrets of the grand Berowne household: the dead man's imperious, aged mother; his frivolous, pregnant, unfaithful (second) wife; his estranged, leftist daughter; family retainers, both bitter and doting. Virtually everyone has a motive. . .and an alibi. Meanwhile, too, James offers sympathetic portraits of non-suspects--like the timid spinster and the local waif who found the bodies; or smart young policewoman Kate Miskin, who's determined to leave her down-scale background (including an aging grandmother) behind. Paradoxically, however, neither of the two central figures here--Dalgliesh himself and murder-victim Sir Paul--emerges with comparable sharpness. And there's a sense of anticlimax when the unmasked killer (unsurprising, unconvincing) takes cop Kate as a hostage--in a harrowing yet contrived and lopsided finale. Unlike Dorothy L. Sayers at her best, then, James hasn't quite managed to combine novelistic richness with disturbing, satisfying mystery. (Rendell, less ambitiously, channels her equally complex talents into many small, neat books in different genres.) But, resonating with themes, from family responsibility to class warfare to the perils of ambition, this leisurely, somber investigation is moodily compelling most of the way through--and only disappointing in its fitful, hollow resolutions. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
James' stalwart hero Adam Dalgliesh returns to brilliant form in a lengthy, almost Dickensian mystery tale set in high political and social circles brimming with deadly secrets. (Ag 86 Upfront)