DNF-ed@page 50.

P. D. James is praised as the New Queen of Murder, but honestly...I just can't get myself through the first 50 pages...these first 50 pages do not even both to show us much of the main players in this murder mystery, and I have absolutely no interest in the MC, Adam Dalgliesh, he and his voice in this story is so fucking boring. Will return this book to the library tomorrow!

I've decided that barring The Children of Men, P.D. James isn't for me...

I bought The Lighthouse twice: once when it first came out five years ago and again the other day. From the blurb on the dust jacket and a quick flick though the book, I did not recognize the story and thought it must be a new P D James novel. That tells you that the story is not particularly memorable and that professional reviewers do not always read the books they review.

In many ways, The Lighthouse is a reworking of James’ The Skull beneath the Skin: an annoying artist or writer delights in provoking everybody around him or her, and sets up tensions that can only end in one way. There is the same privately owned English island, a German whose father died in the war, and a genteel set of guests generally despised by their loyal employees. The similarities in the plot end there.

As always addressing contemporary concerns, in The Lighthouse P D James builds the story around the continual stress many professionals are under. If it is not their marriage or partnership breaking up, it is a stumbling career or public intrusion into their private lives. Where are all these things likely to come to the boil? Obviously, it is at a retreat for overstressed professional and public figures. The downside to this topic is that it is a rather bleak subject, especially for us over-stressed professionals looking for escape. You can sympathise with the characters when they view the murder of one of them with “shock and horror, but also with excitement”, somebody else’s problem to resolve.

I have only a couple of bones to pick with a book I enjoyed both times. The usual excellent prose contains more groceries and clothes than I care about: lists of the contents of people’s pantries, refrigerators and meals, the nurse’s trousers and the boatman’s jeans and dark blue Guernsey pullover. Now if he had been wearing pink cashmere, I would have seen the point of this detail.

There is also the problem of sex. Sex is obligatory in a novel, but in P D James’ books, one has the impression that it is both the author and the characters who heave an audible sigh of relief when the telephone rings at the critical moment and somebody can say, “It’s a case” and begin their “quick and methodical packing”. On the other hand, at least the book does not leave me with a sense of inferiority that every relationship consists of consummated hot passion. These are more realistic characters than one meets in most fiction.

n  “After all, you got a degree in English, didn’t you?”

Again that small prick of resentment from which she was never entirely free.

He said calmly, “It’s from Auden’s poem,’ September 1, 1939.’ I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return.” – The Lighthouse, P D James 2005n

4.5*
A secure and secluded island retreat for the rich and powerful becomes the setting for the murder of an author who is a regular visitor to the island.
Commander Adam Dalgliesh is called in to handle the sensitive case, but soon falls victim to an infective illness that has also felled one of the island's other visitors, so is forced to hand the case over to his principle detective Kate Miskin and the ambitious Sergeant Francis Benton-Smith.
Can they identify the killer before there is another death? Or is this to be the undoing of Kate's career?

This was an absolutely lovely read.
PD James is brilliant at setting the mood; she has a wonderful mastery of the English language and her characters are rounded and largely enchanting while being very human, although there were several in this book that I didn't particularly like.
There are several threads running through this story, which all tie together nicely at the end without resorting to the dreaded "happy ever after" ending.

I couldn't wait to find out whodunit, which is why I blasted through this book in one day. And Nathan Oliver is one of the most deservedly-murdered murder victims ever.

I’ve read one other book by PD James, Death Comes to Pemberley, which I found a bit on the strange side as an Austen fan and, as I recall, most James fans found it a bit off for James as a highly regarded murder mystery writer. It was that high regard that led me to try this book when I came across it at a library book sale.
The book is split into six parts, a prologue that sets the stage of a murder investigation in London as a team assembles. Then four books describing the action and finally an epilogue wrapping everything up. The first hundred pages seem more interested in telling us who is sleeping with whom regardless of if they are victim, suspect, or investigator. As someone unused to these recurring characters, I assume this must be standard to have a bit of an undercurrent of their personal lives woven into the main story but after awhile it became almost laughable that the proclivities of every new introduction had to be gone into. And funnily enough, sex does enter into the story, though not through any of the encounters James goes into in the setup! None of it has any bearing on the case at hand. And spending 100 pages to introduce the characters is a bit long-winded. Once the story proper gets going, it’s well written and enjoyable but as typical in a mystery, the key information is kept from the reader so that there’s no way one could guess the true culprit. A SARS sidestory is somewhat interesting as, at this point in time, I’d almost forgotten that had been a thing once and a very scary one too.
In all, I’d probably give James another try at some point. I enjoyed her Dalgliesh character almost as much as she enjoys her turns of phrases and obscure words. However, I still keep imagining Agatha Christie using 100 pages of a book to explain the sexual practices of Japp, Hastings, Poirot and Miss Lemon, along with all her usual suspects and it just doesn’t work there or here.

Četiri plus zvjezdice za ovaj klasik.Nakon mnogobrojnih krvavih,psihotičnih,brutalnih i pedofilskih romana,ovaj dođe kao odmor za ljubitelje ovog žanra.
Lagana radnja.Ubojstvo na izoliranom otoku za VIP goste, podsjeća me malo na romane Agathe Christie..
Sve onako fino,lagano u stilu "tko bi mogao biti ubojica"..Majstorski odrađeno,mrvicu previše odugovlačenja za uvodni dio.
Uživala! P.D James je doista prava dama krimića:)

I was a great fan of P.D. James long ago when she was the latest thing and she seemed far more erudite than her rivals. But gradually I lost interest as her writing became more turgid, pompous, and needlessly detailed. My wife recommended that I try this one, but James put me off from the first sentence. Could this be self-parody? "Commander Adam Dalgliesh was not unused to being urgently summoned to non-scheduled meetings with unspecified people at inconvenient times, but usually with one purpose in common: he could be confident that somewhere there lay a dead body awaiting his attention." Brevity and clarity were apparently not the goals here. Most of the action takes place on a small island off the southwest coast of England, an island that James describes in detail three times in the first 100 pages. But when I tried to draw a map, (she did not provide one) I ran into multiple inconsistencies. The murder victim is found hanging from a lighthouse, the outside of which James describes twice as having "concave" walls. I have trouble picturing this. Perhaps she means that the lighthouse is slimmer half-way up than at the bottom or top. The victim is suspended by a rope around the neck, a rope twice described as being tied with a bowline. When the body is lowered to the ground, the rope is removed (again described twice) by loosening the loop around the neck. But a bowline is a knot specifically used because it doesn't slip. It was at this point, 138 pages in, that I gave up.

Dalgliesh, Kate Miskin and Sergeant Benton Jones are sent to investigate a suspicious death on an isolated island off the Cornish coast. The island is used to provide rest and privacy for important people to unwind in a secure environment, so Dalgliesh and his team must use discretion as well as their skill in hunting down a possible killer.

This is the penultimate book in the series, and I have begun to find them rather repetitive. There are the same bunch of joyless individuals, most of them harbouring guilty secrets, and unwilling to communicate with each other or the police. There are the lengthy descriptions of everything from furniture to filing cabinets, from what everybody wore and ate to the contents of the tea trolley. There is the forbidding Dalgliesh, supposedly cultured and sensitive, yet never showing any convincing touch of warmth (even to his fiancée).

However, the books are well written, and James is exceptionally skilled at choosing exactly the right word. The characters have varied and convincing motives for murder, and I rarely spot the clues that are scattered until near the end, so I enjoy seeing their secrets revealed. This book was enjoyable enough, but not particularly memorable and will soon merge in my mind with several of its predecessors. But I’ve come so far, I’ve got to finish the series now!

Fast paced and unique setting. Lots of suspects to consider. Great author.

My first PD James book. It took me a while to get into it, at first it felt slow, lots of attention to detail on everything: what people are wearing, the looks on their faces, their body language, the furniture in the room, the food presentation at dinner, the thoughts going through peoples minds, the weather, the scenery, lots of detail. It grew on me as I went along, however; this is a slow yourself down sort of book and she is a really really good writer. If you like British type murder mysteries, a group of people sequestered by themselves (in this case on a small island off the southwest coast of England) while the intrepid inspector Dalgliesh slowly peels back the onion - oh, and there might be an additional murder or two thrown in – it was a very pleasant reading experience. No sex, but surprisingly to me a number of references to sexuality and its human yearnings. I will read more of her.

My 100th book of the year... hooray!!

I maybe should have planned this better so my 100th read was something epic, but at the same time this was an excellent book and a perfect mystery to lose myself in while on holiday. I went through a phase of reading PD James a few years ago, and it's been a treat to come back to her characters and writing as I discover the ones that I missed out on.