P.D. James, The Private Patient (2008)

This police procedural is the forteenth in the Adam Dalgliesh series. I bought the book myself.

My bait quotation has given you some kind of insight in the bleak childhood of Rhoda Gradwyn, the victim of the novel. The incident leaves her with an ugly, facial scar, and perhaps it has also left a lasting stamp on her personality: “Probing into other people´s secrets became a lifelong obsession, the substratum and direction of her whole career.”

Rhoda Gradwyn is excellent at probing and has a splendid career as a journalist, but one suspects the quotation is more sinister than that. When the plot begins, she has finally decided to have her scar removed with the following explanation to the surgeon “because I no longer have need of it.” A very private person who no longer feels she needs a disfigurement to keep people at a distance?

She chooses one of England´s best plastic surgeons, giving her an opportunity to stay at his private Dorset clinic, Cheverell Manor. The operation is a success, but before she has a chance to recover and enjoy her new face, Rhoda is murdered, and everybody connected with the small private clinic in Dorset turns into a suspect. Deftly, P.D. James portrays the staff from the successful surgeon Chandler-Powell to the smallest kitchen maid, plus the Manor and the prehistoric stone circle in the vicinity. They all have secrets which must be revealed, some insignificant, others solid motives for murder, and as usual the police work is in the capable hands of Commander Adam Dalgliesh, DI Kate Miskin and Sergeant Francis Benton-Smith.

This novel is not a fast-paced thriller but a solid, British mystery written by an expert who takes her time to let the characters and the environment unfold, very successfully on the whole, though there is stil a thing or two I would have liked to know. And the language is – as always - an exquisite treat.

Tuesday´s Special: P.D. James

If I had to pick just one favourite detective, it would be very difficult for me to choose between Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh and Inspector Morse. I have spent so many pleasant hours in the company of these two gentlemen.

But today is P.D. James´ day. Believe it or not, the woman who has written so many wonderful crime novels, turns 90 today – and is still going strong.

Congratulations, Baroness James of Holland Park!

And thank you for two great stories about the private detective, Cordelia Gray, and fourteen novels featuring Adam Dalgliesh.

P.D. James interviewed by Craig, Crime Watch

P.D. James, Death of an Expert Witness (1977)

[Dansk titel: Mord på laboratoriet, 1979]

This crime novel is the sixth in the Adam Dalgliesh series. Even though this story begins with a body in a clunch field, the main setting is Hoggatt´s, the Forensic Science Laboratory in the fen, the staff and all the people who are connected to this old institution one way or the other.

We meet the newly-appointed director, Maxim Howarth, self-confident and single but living together with his strong, independent sister (not unlike Alix and Alice Mair in Devices and Desires). Important staff members are laid-back, well-meaning Dr Middlemass and Dr Lorrimer, hated and despised by most of his colleagues, except young Brenda Pridmore, the enthusiastic receptionist. Dr Howarth´s secretary, Angela Foley and her friend, Stella Mawson also play important parts in this intricate mystery.

So this rather closed setting around the forensic lab is one of the really strong points of this novel. Well-drawn characters that I remember, not necessarily because they are likeable, but because they are so human, and as usual P.D. James has constructed a complex plot, worthy of Dalgliesh´s experience, which is not solved until the very last pages.

P.D. James Revisited II

As mentioned yesterday, Unnatural Causes takes place in Suffolk, in a small community where everybody knows everybody else.

All the residents and weekend guests of Monksmere Head are writers of some kind; romance, crime, non-fiction, literary critics, plus the orphaned and crippled little typist. And of course these greater or lesser artists have their little quirks, their allies and their enemies.

In many ways this novel can be compared to Dorothy Sayers´ The Five Red Herrings (1931) which takes place in a colony of temperamental Scottish painters. I remember that I found the story a bit confusing, but I fell for the expression ´a red herring´ which was new to me then. (Not 1931, but mid1980s, probably). And as usual, I was impressed by Sayers´ solution.

Another variation of the artistic circle is Caroline Graham´s Written in Blood, an Inspector Barnaby novel from 1994. A famous artist agrees to visit Midsomer Worthy´s Writer´s Circle, somewhat surprisingly, and a death takes place. Again, the key to the plot is the interrelationship among the writers.

Do you remember similar examples of murder among a small circle of artists? Do you like this kind of setting?

P.D. James Revisited.

My current read is an old Chief Inspector Dalgliesh novel. No, wait, Superintendent Dalgliesh. I have read it many years ago, but it is one of the few early works of the great P.D. James I didn´t own so I bought it earlier this year.


Read the first lines of Unnatural Causes (1967)

"The corpse without hands lay in the bottom of a small sailing dinghy drifting just within sight of the Suffolk coast. It was the body of a middle-aged man, a dapper little cadaver, its shroud a dark pin-striped suit with fitted the narrow body as elegantly in death as it had in life."

A cadaver without hands in a remote place, and I am hooked.
What about you? What are these little tricks that make a book into something you cannot put down?

P.D. James, Det du'r piger ikke til (1978)

Forfatteren er formodentlig langt bedre kendt for sin Adam Dalgliesh-serie, men jeg synes, de to romaner med den kvindelige detektiv Cordelia Gray er dejlige og forfriskende. Dette er den første, hvor Cordelia helt uventet ´arver´ det detektivbureau, hun er medejer af, fordi stifteren, Bernie Pryde, begår selvmord (se nedenstående citat).

Cordelia er chokeret, men lader sig ikke slå ud, heller ikke af de mange velmenende mennesker i hendes omgivelser, som hævder, detektivfaget ikke er noget for en kvinde. Hun er nøgtern og jordnær, og når hun kommer på sporet, bider hun sig fast.
Plottet drejer sig om en anset videnskabsmands søn, som har begået selvmord, og da videnskabsmænd har brug for svar, antager han Cordelia til at finde svaret på spørgsmålet hvorfor. Måske vanskeligt nok i sig selv, men hun går til opgaven med stort engagement, og selvfølgelig viser det sig, at sagen er mere indviklet og farligere end som så.

Et morsomt lille kneb: Bernie Pryde er tidligere politimand, og har – selvfølgelig – arbejdet sammen med Adam Dalgliesh, som i hans øjne troner højt oppe på en piedestal. Så P.D. James´ berømte hovedperson svæver hele tiden over vandene, for til sidst at dukke op til en lille styrkeprøve med Cordelia Gray.

Apropos dette trick, som Anne Holt også benytter i Madam President: kender du andre krimiforfattere, som på denne måde bringer hovedpersoner fra forskellige serier sammen?

P.D. James, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972).
The author is probably far better known for her Adam Dalgliesh series, but in my opinion the two novels featuring the female detective Cordelia Gray are nice and refreshing stories. This one is the first, where Cordelia quite unexpectedly ´inherits´ the detective bureau of which she is a part owner, because the founder, Bernie Pryde, commits suicide (see the quotation below).

Cordelia is shocked, but will not be beaten by adversity nor by well-meaning people who claim detection is not a career for a woman. She is down-to-earth, and when she is on the track, she follows it through.

The plot centres around a scientist´s son who has committed suicide, and as the scientist needs answers, he employs Cordelia to find out why. This may be difficult enough, but she sets out to do her job, and of course things are more complex and dangerous than they seemed at first.
An amusing little trick: Bernie Pryde is a former policeman, and – of course – he has worked under the icon Adam Dalgliesh. So P.D. James´s famous protagonist hovers in the background throughout the novel, until he finally appears on stage for a little battle between him and Cordelia.

Apropos of this trick which is also used by Anne Holt in “Death in Oslo”: do you know of other crime fiction writers who bring together protagonists from different series together?