3 Stars. I wanted to elevate it to a four but just couldn't stretch that far. There may be a security issue on Combe Island, just off the coast of Cornwall, and Commander Dalgliesh is called to confer with the higher-ups in London. The PM is planning to visit the retreat on the island with some important dignitaries and the death there, whether murder or suicide is not yet known, of a famous author needs quick attention. Send in Dalgleish. There are few residents; it should be straightforward. But it isn't. The cantankerous Nathan Oliver was found hanging in the lighthouse. A note asking him to attend an early morning meeting at that location may have been viewed by more than the intended recipient. Dalgleish can't take his full team, but DI Kate Miskin and DS Francis Benton-Smith do play a role and become crucial to the resolution. This all plays out during the SARS outbreak, and that too has a role. Some of the story is not tied together as well as I would like, but there's another Adam Dalgleish in my future for sure. (January 2019)

The Lighthouse is the 13th mystery novel by P.D. James to feature her detective Adam Dalgliesh. The penultimate one in the series, it was published in 2005.

This particular novel brings to mind much earlier ones featuring Dalgleish, such as "The Black Tower" from 1975, where the action takes place on a Dorset hilltop, or the even earlier 1971 novel, "Shroud for a Nightingale", set in a student nursing school. P.D. James usually chooses fascinating locations for her novels. One such location is Larksoken, the setting for her novel "Devices and Desires". Set in a nuclear power station on an isolated Norfolk headland on the East Anglian coast, this novel typically lends itself to exploring wider, perhaps darker, issues. Sometimes the settings are identifiable, although in The Lighthouse the island described is very much like Lundy Island.

All such novels hinge on a favourite device of the author's; a murder which takes place in a closed, almost inaccessible community. In this case, the community is located on an island 12 miles off the north coast of Cornwall. Here, stressed high-level executives were sometimes admitted for recuperation and seclusion. No ordinary holiday destination, "Combe Island" had at one time been a pirates' lair, then a privately owned estate, and had now been taken over and was governed by a charitable trust. Those who visited this high-security retreat, often did so in strict secrecy.

At the start of the book, what appeared to be a murder had taken place on the island, and Adam Dalgleish is being briefed about it. The famous novelist Nathan Oliver was the victim, and although he had been discovered hanging from Combe island's historic lighthouse, in a position suggestive of another's involvement, it is not absolutely certain that it is not suicide. Nathan Oliver had been a very brusque and unpleasant man, unpopular with long-term residents and staff alike. However, because he had been born on the island, the conditions of the trust stipulated that he was allowed to visit whenever he liked.

After this brief introduction to the scene, we follow the three police officers who are to be involved. P.D. James carefully allows ample space in three separate chapters to detail the personal situations in the lives of each. There is Commander Dalgleish, plus his two assisting officers, Kate Miskin and newcomer Francis Benton-Smith. There is also a romantic back story at the start, with Bentons's predecessor Piers Tarrant.

The officers arrive at the island by helicopter, along with a pathologist, Dr. Edith Glenister, who is very highly regarded; an expert in her field. When she confirms it is murder, the detectives begin to try to sort out the threads of what has happened.

Nathan Oliver had been accompanied on his visit to Combe Island by both his daughter Miranda and his copy-editor, Dennis Tremlett. Each of these individuals has their own complicated history - and is also hiding a secret. The manager of the trust, and therefore the coordinator of this little community, is Rupert Maycroft. We quickly discover that he is under pressure from two sides, both of whom wish to live in the best cottage. The cottage is currently inhabited by the sole remaining member of the family who had owned the island for many years, but Nathan Oliver had been pushing to replace the current occupant himself.

Each of the guests have reason to feel dislike - or even outright enmity - for Nathan Oliver. The manager's secretary Adrian Boyde, for instance, used to be an Anglican priest. He seems to be under a cloud, and the readers and the police suspect that he is a recovering alcoholic. As the novel progresses, we learn more about Nathan Oliver's malevolent influence. Another guest who has reason to fear and dislike Nathan Oliver is a scientist, Dr. Mark Yelland, who believes that an evil character in Oliver's latest novel is a thinly veiled description of him. He feels this to be a gross distortion of the truth. Not only that, but he fears it is likely to inflame the Animal Rights activists, who had already been very critical of him publicly, and he now has real concerns for his reputation. He had confronted Nathan Oliver in full view of all the community, shortly before Oliver's death.

The permanent residents of Combe Island too have had their own arguments with Nathan Oliver. Jago Tamlyn, the boatman, is a taciturn individual, but clearly has had past dealings with him. Daniel Padgett is a handyman who came to the island with his mother who also worked there. He plans to leave the island as she has recently died. However, he incurs Oliver's wrath, after a simple mistake. Just as with the other characters the other guests feel nonplussed at Oliver's extreme reaction of anger.

Nathan Oliver's behaviour - both in the past and more recently - tends to disgust everybody, with one sole exception. There is a young staff member, Millie Tranter, who seems to have liked him. This in itself seems odd to the others, especially the housekeeper, who suspects ulterior motives on Oliver's part. However, all are equally adamant that they did not kill Nathan Oliver, or know anything about it. One other character arrives late on the scene, having been exploring the island on his own and therefore being difficult to track down. The eminent Dr. Raimund Speidel is visiting from Germany. However, it becomes clear during Dalgleish's interview that he is very ill, and is soon under strict medical attention.

Everything is nicely set up for an intriguing mystery, and sure enough the second half includes a secondary murder, and from then on escalates into a gripping drama. A long-forgotten mystery from history, a tale of betrayal and deep resentment, reveals the reasons for what happened. To pile on the suspense, one of the officers falls gravely ill, in itself a life-threatening risk in such a remote location. This character is unable to complete the work, although they are working out the puzzle in their mind. Another excels in a situation they have not experienced before. There is an extremely tense and exciting edge-of-the-seat scene towards the end, cleverly written by this experienced author. And we have a happy ending of an unexpected type.

P.D. James excels at this type of mystery novel, which never incorporates any humorous elements. Unlike novels by some other authors in the genre, there is never any flippancy in her stories. Murder is always a serious business. She is adept at carefully balancing the back story of her characters, and the action, so that the reader never becomes frustrated at the lack of plot. She involves her readers, fleshing out her picture of the detectives we know and love, moving them forward in their lives from previous novels. But she also manages to explore depths in her new characters, going into meticulous detail about each character's past. These are never cardboard cutouts, or puppets carefully arranged to move the plot forward. P.D. James makes her readers interested in the lives of those individuals specific to the current novel too.

In this way she could be said to write "crossover" novels, which could be considered to be mainstream. Yet she never forgets that what she is writing is a "whodunnit". Unlike the current trend for lengthy novels in which the murder is almost incidental, her novels have a sound crime focus.

The structure P.D James employs is satisfying and pleasing. She employs a formal pattern, first thoroughly introducing the detectives. The suspects then come forward in turn, as both the reader and the detectives carefully analyse all the clues and motives to the murder. P.D James has said that this rigid form, typical of a traditional "golden age" detective novel, sets the writer's imagination free, in a similar way to the 14 lines and strict rhyming sequence of a sonnet. It has to be said that there are other similarities to "golden age" mysteries. Adam Dalgleish is very much in the gentleman detective mould, his penchant for writing poetry and intellectual proclivities being reminiscent of Dorothy L. Sayers' cerebral Lord Peter Wimsey. It is interesting too, that both novelists confessed to being in love with their creations. But the language P.D. James uses is never dated.

Sadly P.D. James died in 2014. She had started her career in the forensics and criminal justice departments of Great Britain's Home Office, and applied her specialist knowledge to her crime novels. Although the 1980's was the decade when her books were memorably best-sellers, it is good to know that she was still able to create such a devious mystery at the grand age of 85.

The same old PDJ tropes reshuffled: a remote location for posh people, this time an island with the eponymous lighthouse - the usual characters: the old aristocrat with her loyal butler-handyman, the failed priest, the cook/housekeeper, the inset story that goes back to WW2, the endless descriptions of mahogany furniture and leather-bound books, and original oil paintings, and classical music - yawn. Dalgleish catches SARS and has a feverish vision which solves the crime while wringing his hands over beautiful Emma who's just too good for him - and the clue is buried in the butter!. No final confession this time but another hostage situation just like a few of the earlier books - followed by some absurd pastoral final chapters as our police team all stay on the island as guests after the arrest and cosy up with all the ex-suspects while thinking deep thoughts. So pompous, so humourless, so self-regardingly earnest.