Not one of her best. First of all I had trouble with the degree to which they sheltered a convicted pedophile. He did need a place to live, but why the vitriol towards the person who was responsible for his being found guilty? The character was not necessary to the story line, so I wonder at PD James' reason for including him.
Second, I found some of the dialogue a bit stiff and unrealistic.
It's hard to put my finger on it, but I did not enjoy this book as much as I have enjoyed some of her other books.

Such a wonderful novel and it has the multiple layers that the church provides. We have just about every sin included and the violent wrath of God in the weather and landscape of the East Anglian Coast. Commander Dalgliesh needs to be at his absolute best to outwit this murderer.
This is a closed room/college environment and the motives and behaviour take some picking apart. The atmosphere is very oppressive and egos very prevalent. This is intense reading and my fave of the series so far in this rereading. Literate and superbly crafted from my personal favourite crime writer.

The writing was excellent as usual, but can't get over the characters' attitude towards child molestation. I will read more of James' fiction, but I would not recommend this book to anyone who cares about children.

Disappointed in this, my first James mystery (though I've read *Children of Men*). There's a weird apology for an abusive priest running through it along with what felt like way too many red herring motives....

Decent PD James mystery. I've always had a fondness for her hero Adam Dalgliesh. He hasn't seemed to age since the earlier books I read in my youth, though he's always seemed like an older man.

The atmosphere at the old seminary is very spooky, and appealing to lovers of English mysteries. The setting is on the ocean and the beach gave me chills. James draws us some excellent, odd characters with various morals.

But when the murderer was revealed, I was stunned because I couldn't understand the murderer's motivation. James should have spelled it out, but she didn't, and this is a MAJOR problem with the book. Lots of other characters had plenty of motivation. Yes, everyone disliked the victim but one needs a good reason for murder, and with all the probable suspects at the seminary, the mystery's solution didn't make any sense (and I felt rather foolish for having read the story at all and thinking I could understand the great PD James).

Given this problem with the motive....well, I'm not sure the books rates the three stars I've given it.

Fans of crime/mystery fiction already know how/why P. D. James' work is worthy of reading and rereading. This novel confers additional blessing in its portrain of Anglo-Catholic Anglicanism in Britain. If that scene holds any interest for you (ahem ... it does for me), then this book delivers a double payload of entertainment.

Bettie's Books

Good writing and an intelligent protagonist make for enjoyable reading. The story unfolds as a real investigation would, with few distractions or red herrings. It is nice to read a mystery with a smart detective, rather than the amateur sleuth making stupid mistakes and getting in over their heads. You don't need me to rehash the plot, that is on the book listing. Enjoyable read.

This is a very well written book in some respects. The characters are well described and plots and sub plots explained well. The author is also able to evoke an atmosphere of tension and mystery which supports the main story superbly well. However, it's such a 'wordy' book - honestly it seemed to take ages to confirm the killer in this case. It got to the stage where I was fed up of guessing. Too long and, if anything, too detailed. I felt it needed a really good edit to keep the storyline sharp and the reader's interest in tact. By and large I liked the key character- Inspector Adam Dalglish - and would not be unhappy about reading more in the series but would likely skim some of the pages in future.

В попытках спасти провальный с точки зрения удовольствия от чтения год решила сосредоточиться на любимом жанре, и тут же обнаружила для себя нового автора.

Внезапно очень симпатичный классический британский детектив с очень классическими британскими персонажами и настроением - священники, студенты, образованные следователи, все цитируют и пишут стихи, суровое море подмывает берег у старого викторианского здания колледжа, винные погреба выше всяких похвал, церковный подсвечник - орудие убийства. Как домой вернулась.

Quite an interesting book, but did not really sustain interest till the end.

If your interest in crime fiction drops once you find out who the murderer is, and you don't care much for the chase for proof which could serve the prosecution's case, then the last 50 odd pages in this book are superfluous. However, I haven't read the earlier Dalgleish novels and I suppose the prolonged ending was included to finally show how Dalgleish found peace in the restoration of justice.

As a stranger to the setting in which the book happens, the significance of some concepts like wafers etc were lost on me and required some googling. And, it didn't settle well with me that so many of the characters in the book, clergy and otherwise, felt irrational anger that a child molester was found guilty in court.

Listened to the audio version of this; read the book soon after it was published in 2001. I've gone through all the Adam Dalgliesh mysteries and remembered this as one of the best. But, now, on a second round, I was distracted by other things in the story.

I remembered the setting & the characters Father Martin, Father Sebastian and Eric from my first read. Book takes place at an Anglo-Catholic theological college, Saint Anselm's, on the isolated, wild and windy East Anglican coast. Setting was 5 star & most of the characters were very well drawn. This time around I was bothered though by the very sympathetic portrayal of one of the characters, Father John, a convicted pedophile. There are some hints that perhaps he wasn't guilty at all, certainly there's explanations that he was only accused of fondling, but somehow, today, this is hard to justify. I assume James is trying to portray moral ambiguity, the grayness of guilt in her characters.

I also wasn't sure I believed the murderer's motives at the end. There were so many red herrings in this novel.

James is an excellent writer and I look forward to re-reading more of the Adam Dalgliesh mysteries.