P.D james is a wonderful writer and I enjoyed this book of hers as much as I did all the others I've read of hers.

It's very boring and slow. The author describes everything in minute detail quite unnecessarily, and every time a character is introduced (no matter how unimportant to the plot), the story stops and we're treated to what basically amounts to their whole biography.

I did discover who the murderer was (at first I thought, "it can't be that easy", and kept looking for clues, but by the 75% mark there was absolutely no doubt about it). That's not fun.

And honestly, I had no sense of who the Inspector Adam Dalgliesh was. He was a blank to me. Ok, this is book #9 in the series, but this is a detective novel. You're supposed to be able to read it out of order and still "know" who the main detective is as a character. You could pick up any Agatha Christie book in the Poirot series and find out everything you needed to know about Poirot, from his appearance to his personality. But here? I got nothing.

Finally, I was very uncomfortable with the ending. The detective Daniel Aaron finally figures out who's been killing people, but decides that rather than doing his job and arresting a double murderer, he'd rather warn the murderer that the police have figured out whodunnit - because Aaron is Jewish, and the murderer's motive was getting "revenge" for the betrayal of his Jewish family to the Nazis during WWII (by killing people who had absolutely nothing to do with it). WHAT. THAT'S NONSENSE. I don't see any possibility of a real-life detective even considering such a course of action, it's a stunning (and criminal) dereliction of duty. I thought it was very suspicious that PD James wrote about a Jewish detective deciding to put his Jewish identity above his very clear duty as a policeman, especially when the case was far from being a straight revenge (you betray my family, I kill you). It does remind one of antisemitic notions that Jews are perpetual outsiders and will always put themselves as a group above national institutions, etc. It was not at all well done.

Side note, but it also didn't make sense that the killer would wait so freaking long to get his "revenge". From the moment he discovers who actually betrayed his family to when he begins to carry out the murders, MANY MANY YEARS elapse. He says he had to kill Gerard Etienne because Gerard got engaged and "there might be children", which he didn't want to happen. Which is nonsense because Etienne was not exactly a virgin before getting engaged??? He was a total womanizer for years! Does the murderer know how babies are made? Or does he think children are only born from married couples??

DNF. I only got to page 30 before I started lightly skimming. By page 60, I was skipping paragraphs. Pretty soon, I realized that nothing had happened beyond the first couple of pages and I didnt care if anything did.

I had already read it and forgotten all about it. That's how memorable it is. I don't understand what people see in this book.

One of my original (ha!) favorites--enough that I remembered some of the critical details. A big fan of moral quandaries (in books, not life) and also love Dalgliesh being kind.

Not one of my favourite P.D.James. I suppose as a writer myself, the idea of murder in a publishing house appealed but the denouement when it came was so subtle and not a little too contrived. None of the characters had much to like about them and there was a lot of "head hopping" (different characters points of view within one scene) that gets quite tedious. Characters were introduced and then never referred to again. As for the police, I always find Dalgleish a little pompous and sanctimonious and I am not sure Daniel Aaron's final actions were consistent with his character. Still, she is a master of her craft and they are always enjoyable reads. I give her full marks for not telegraphing the murderer. I was suitably surprised!

Typical P D James with equal importance to lives of characters as well as the mystery . A well known publishing house which experiences a spate of misfortune in the form of board members and authors conking off .. initially thought to be suicide , later foul play subjected. As usual , Adam Dalgleish team is drawn into the investigation. Was great going till 60 percent , the final pages fell flat.

The past story was not very convincing ..

Riveting. I wanted to read it in one sitting but it was so good I stretched it out. Very suspenseful right to the end. And while at some point I may have guessed what was going on I never saw this story end coming. The way it played out was a shocker.

Original Sin, the 9th book of the Adam Dalgliesh series, takes us again to a literary circle. The managing director of a publishing house dies under peculiar circumstances. Is it murder, accident, or suicide? Commander Adam Dalgliesh and his team are summoned to investigate the matter. Dalgliesh believes that the motive for the crime is rooted in the past. When one by one more information comes to light, it appears that after all, Dalgliesh may be right.

This is comparatively a better murder-mystery story in the series. From the very beginning, the tension is well built up. And when after the first death the investigation begins the suspense is slowly built up as Dalgliesh and his team meticulously collects evidence to unravel the cause of the mysterious death. As always, James penetrates deep into the lives and psychology of the characters giving us a clear picture and making us quite acquainted with them. Dalgliesh's appearance is less than usual, yet all through the story his presence and authority are felt.

The plot was not altogether plausible, but quite imaginative which I liked. It wasn't difficult to figure who was behind the deaths, but the motive I confess was never within my reach until it slowly surfaced up. The ending was rather disappointing, but that didn't turn my heart against the book as a whole.

There are, of course, the usual grievances of it taking a considerable time for the crime to be committed and Dalgliesh to appear, and that the story could have done less of one-fourth of its length. But somehow I could overlook them here.

On the whole, I enjoyed this book better than some of the previous books of the series. The series certainly is getting better, and I'm happy that I continued despite the disappointment I felt over some in the series.

The characters were boring, the plot was boring and the story didn’t really focus on Adam Dalgliesh like I expected it to since its part of a series focusing on him. It felt like people were being killed off on a whim. They were all so self centered and conceited. The ending made no sense because no police officer would stand there watching while a murder suspect walked into marsh land to drown themselves. Also, one of the police detectives was Jewish and for some reason the last third or so of the book kept bringing this up and not in a nice way. I really didn’t see the point of that.

It has been years, but Original Sin still stands out in my memory as the best mystery I have ever read. Unlike some genre fiction, it is wonderful literature as well as "mysterious".

Not one of my favourite James books.
The long, deliberate build-up is so long and so deliberate that for a large part of the book one has the sensation that nothing is happening at all. Lots of character detail but not much else.
And the dénouement....... sorry but no. I didn't object to the moral dilemmas of the Jewish policeman during the course of the book but what happens at the end is just unreal (not wishing to give anything away).
I like the Dalglish series a lot but this one was disappointing.