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Adam Dalgliesh #11

Death in Holy Orders

p.d. james

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From the award-winning master of literary crime fiction, a classic work rich in tense drama and psychological insight.

On the East Anglian seacoast, a small theological college hangs precariously on an eroding shoreline and an equally precarious future. When the body of a student is found buried in the sand, the boy’s influential father demands that Scotland Yard investigate. Enter Adam Dalgliesh, a detective who loves poetry, a man who has known loss and discovery. The son of a parson, and having spent many happy boyhood summers at the school, Dalgliesh is the perfect candidate to look for the truth in this remote, rarified community of the faithful–and the frightened. And when one death leads to another, Dalgliesh finds himself steeped in a world of good and evil, of stifled passions and hidden pasts, where someone has cause not just to commit one crime but to begin an unholy order of murder. . . .

“Gracefully sculpted prose and [a] superbly executed mystery . . . Death in Holy Orders is among [James’s] most remarkable and accomplished Dalgliesh novels.”
–The Philadelphia Inquirer

“An elegant work about hope, death, and the alternately redemptive and destructive nature of love.”
–The Miami Herald

“Absorbing . . . [James’s] plotting and characterization [are] impeccable.”
–Orlando Sentinel

“P. D. James is in top form.”
–The Boston Globe

Open the exclusive dossier at the back of this book, featuring P. D. James’ essay on penning the perfect detective novel.

448 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1,2001
Series
Adam Dalgliesh
Literary awards
barry award, premio pepe carvalho, 
Places
east anglia england, 

This edition

Format
448 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published
March 26, 2002 by Ballantine Books
ISBN
9780345446664
ASIN
0345446666
Language
English
Characters More characters

More editions

About the author

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p.d. james

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P. D. James, byname of Phyllis Dorothy James White, Baroness James of Holland Park, (born August 3, 1920, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England—died November 27, 2014, Oxford), British mystery novelist best known for her fictional detective Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard.

The daughter of a middle-grade civil servant, James grew up in the university town of Cambridge. Her formal education, however, ended at age 16 because of lack of funds, and she was thereafter self-educated. In 1941 she married Ernest C.B. White, a medical student and future physician, who returned home from wartime service mentally deranged and spent much of the rest of his life in psychiatric hospitals. To support her family (which included two children), she took work in hospital administration and, after her husband's death in 1964, became a civil servant in the criminal section of the Department of Home Affairs. Her first mystery novel, Cover Her Face (1962), introduced Dalgliesh and was followed by six more mysteries before she retired from government service in 1979 to devote full time to writing.

Dalgliesh, James's master detective who rises from chief inspector in the first novel to chief superintendent and then to commander, is a serious, introspective person, moralistic yet realistic. The novels in which he appears are peopled by fully rounded characters, who are civilized, genteel, and motivated. The public resonance created by James's singular characterization and deployment of classic mystery devices led to most of the novels featuring Dalgliesh being filmed for television. James, who earned the sobriquet “Queen of Crime,” penned 14 Dalgliesh novels, with the last, The Private Patient, appearing in 2008.

James also wrote An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972) and The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982), which centre on Cordelia Gray, a young private detective. The first of these novels was the basis for both a television movie and a short-lived series. James expanded beyond the mystery genre in The Children of Men (1992; film 2006), which explores a dystopian world in which the human race has become infertile. Her final work, Death Comes to Pemberley (2011)—a sequel to Pride and Prejudice (1813)—amplifies the class and relationship tensions between Jane Austen's characters by situating them in the midst of a murder investigation. James's nonfiction works include The Maul and the Pear Tree (1971), a telling of the Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811 written with historian T.A. Critchley, and the insightful Talking About Detective Fiction (2009). Her memoir, Time to Be in Earnest, was published in 2000. She was made OBE in 1983 and was named a life peer in 1991.

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Community Reviews

Rating(4 / 5.0, 99 votes)
5 stars
38(38%)
4 stars
26(26%)
3 stars
35(35%)
2 stars
0(0%)
1 stars
0(0%)
99 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Progeny
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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The beginning was not promising - an unusually clumsy device used to exposition-dump at the beginning (journal entries) isn't the kind of thing we usually get from PD James. But it grew into a very satisfying story. This one wasn't so much about who-dunit but more about figuring out why they did it, and whether enough evidence would be obtained for an arrest, which had become a fraught question due to the resolution of Dalgliesh's last case.
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Abusaeed
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Another well crafted mystery with a series of murders and intrigues set at a private school run by the Anglican church near London. Again the protagonist detectives wend their ways through the hints and clues and ultimately the crimes are solved. It was a good book to read. Not too easy to solve and the characters ran true. Adam Daglgleish may have discovered new love, which I guess will be good altho I have only read two books so I am not sure his personality needs it. We'll see.
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maegan_kk
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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When you finish a mystery, do you ever look back to see where the author steered you wrong? Usually I have trouble spotting it, but this time I realized it - how clever you are, P.D. James! I spent most of the book thinking I'd have to get to a certain point in the story, only to discover (when I looked back) that I didn't realize what the full story was.

A pleasurable read!
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Kurutteru
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Typical mediocre mystery fiction.

This book was as predictable as it was long. From the first scene portrayed in the book, the conclusion is obvious. It seems as if James is trying to sneak little clues in so when the reader finishes (shocked, of course, at the outcome "I NEVER saw that one coming!") he can return to the beginning and discover the subtle clues that in fact verify the conclusion. The problem is, her subtle clues are a few shades less than subtle.

James seems intent on playing mind games with the reader, as if we would second guess our hypothesis every other page: "Uh oh, HE can't have done it, he doesn't even HAVE a brown cloak! Wait a minute!"

The only main theme one can pull from this rather pretentious little novel is that pigs do not stink. It seems as though the author is a pig enthusiast and can't bear the thought that so many people think they have an unpleasant odor.

Character development suffers, particularly on the part of the hero, commander Adam Dalgliesh. The reader comes to be more enamored with the (rather perverse) sub-characters than with the protagonist.

James' feeble attempt at inserting a romantic element is sickening. Dalgliesh is first drawn to a "ravishingly beautiful" murder suspect, feeling a strange attraction that, we are told, he has not felt since the death of his wife.

Poorly done. Long. Dragging. Lame climax.
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shadowpath19
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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For me, this is altogether the best Dalgliesh book in the series so far.
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Verthelion
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Un classico giallo che piu' classico non si puo'. Un ambiente circoscritto, un seminario religioso, una cerchia ristretta di persone, un misterioso avvenimento del passato e un volitivo investigatore. La trama non poteva essere di conseguenza particolarmente originale, tuttavia, tra qualche affanno di troppo, si fa apprezzare. Nota negativa, il finale piatto in una maniera sconcertante.
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MrMonkey
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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It was extremely well written and interesting but felt that it built up for the whole book and then all of a sudden spilled who the murderer was.
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Tomah
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Definitely one of the lesser P.D. James books for me, with an aspect that troubled me morally.

The setting - a secluded old estate by the sea, with a few quaint old cottages for commoners - seemed overly familiar. So did the participants - a collection of well-off academics who only enjoy high culture. The characterisation felt black-and-white. Main character Dalgliesh was annoyingly self-righteous, distant and superior, but the writer never showed that in a negative light. Dalgliesh' love interest and pals were also without any flaws. At the same time those considered antagonists in the story seemed to be without redeeming qualities.

Nothing awfully inventive about the plot either, the ending was an anti-climax, and the motivation behind the deaths was not built in a fully convincing manner.

The pace seemed to drag on throughout. There were ramblings about religion and morals that felt as if James just wanted to force a few of her own random musings into a murder mystery. I found myself leafing through many parts of the unnecessarily long 600-page book.

I used to quite enjoy the timeless, escapist environment of James' books, but now it felt she's unable to keep up with the times. It all felt very old-fashioned for a book published just a decade ago. It could've easily been set at any time in the last century, if there hadn't been a few jarring mobiles thrown in.

However, what especially bothered me was the outdated and rather bizarre stance on morality. A female is considered unfeeling and selfish for having casual sex, while everyone feels sorry for a man who went to prison for "just" (!) fondling children. I kept waiting for the molester to get his comeuppance; that would've been a nice twist, to prove even holier-than-thou Dalgliesh wrong. But, it never came, so there was no need for that disturbing "kind-hearted molester" aspect to be there - except the author seemingly trying to make her own opinion known. I just thought that kind of an opionion could've been left out from a book like this.

I'm a very sporadic James reader, but this book still was frustrating, since some of her work is excellent. Now this book makes me wonder if Mrs. James - who was 80 when she wrote it - should retire and tour grand English estates instead.
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