Written in the sixties, this mystery is done in the English/Agatha Christie style. A middle-class man is murdered and the police find him surrounded by quirky, irritating characters, all of whom have motive and opportunity. Who did it? Who cares?
James' strong suit is characters, to the point where it's overkill. In a modern mystery, we might meet the characters, understand them, and move on. Here, we are pounded with scene after scene of characters acting in their peculiar ways--is that a clue? Not really.
James does a decent job of building a complex mystery. There are plenty of red-herrings--everybody is a possible suspect, and there's some tension, in spite of endless conversations between weirdos. But in the end the solution is too bizarre to accept: too complicated, too impossible, even if the motives make sense. It turns out the real mystery is 'how' it was done, and the answer is just too far fetched.

Another engagingly written story from a master.

Все прекрасно в книгах Джеймс про Адама Дэлглиша, только часто очень уж карикатурные мотивы у убийц. Но читать приятно, рада, что нашла себе нового детектива-героя и именно серию (а то сколько можно Стаута перечитывать).

“Where’s the body?” According to Marilyn Stasio NY Times crime fiction critic, this is the first question readers ask of a crime novel. PD James an old master, 101 this year (if she was still alive) answers this in the first sentence of this 1967 novel: “The corpse without hands lay in the bottom of a small sailing dinghy drifting within sight of the Suffolk coast.” It’s her third Adam Dalgleish book and it’s set in a small storm ravaged coastal village that seems occupied by writers, critics and other nasty types. Apart from Dalgleish and Aunt Jane they’re a fairly unpleasant bunch of characters, and that’s not even the killer. Some of them, even the detective, share some very outmoded attitudes to disability. All of which made this book hard going for me, especially since Dalgleish doesn’t have center stage until the last third of it. Once he does take the reins in the wake of his arrogant but ineffectual local colleague, the pace picks up and the tension ratchets up into a climax that unfolds against the background of a wild storm. James’s descriptions of the storm and the killers final surprising move are beautifully written, gripping stuff, but it’s a long wait in this Agatha Christie-style village mystery. Not one of PD's best, and some of the characters are pretty stock, but the plotting is good and even 50-odd years after she wrote it there is plenty to enjoy on a cold wet lockdown weekend. Three and a half stars.

Before I started I couldn't remember whether I had read this before or not. I don't think I read this one. I think I would remember this.

A couple of years ago I decided to go back to the beginning and work my way through. I am finding that I haven't read as many of her books as I thought I had. Either that, or my memory isn't what I thought it was. Because no bells are going off.

I listened to this one. Adam Dalgliesh takes an annual visit to his elderly aunt on the shore (and don't ask me what shore but there is a beach and, I think, an odean). On this trip he is also trying to decide whether to ask Deborah to marry him. This is like a writers' colony. It seems that everyone, except Aunt Jane who is a birder, is a writer or related to a writer. But everyone knows what Adam does. And one of the neighbors, a mystery writer, is missing. So almost as soon as Adam has parked his car, the neighbors find a need to drop by and find out what he thinks. But before the night is over a local inspector drops in with the bad news that he is no longer missing, he is dead.

Adam tries to stay out of it. Everyone starts volunteering alibis before the inspector has even asked.

Good story and I didn't get the killer. One problem is that we are told things and the reader (anyway, this reader) assumes them to be true, whether they are in fact or not.

The story is set in Suffolk on the coast near Sizewell. Dalgleish visits his aunt for a holiday and to decide whether to propose to his girlfriend. A bizzare murder takes place. Maurice Seaton a hack crime writer dies mysteriously and is found in a dingy with both his hands chopped off. The suspects are his cousin Digby, Celia another writer, two critics and Celia’s ward Miss Marley and Sylvia Kedge a disabled secretary/housekeeper for Seaton.

The authors treatment of the disabled character is harsh as are the attitudes to her in the story. The tension between Reckless the investigating officer and Dalgleish is apparent.

The storm st the end and the confession of Sylvia of how she did it is well done especially how she manipulated Digby who was a bit dense. The late introduction of claustrophobia and why the hands were chopped off all made sense.

A good read but the attitudes to a disabled person and her motive is disquieting.

No es un libro rápido, todo se cuece lentamente. Da descripciones muy detalladas de los personajes y te hace ver cómo es cada uno de ellos, pero a veces se hace quizás algo más pesado. Se desarrolla en un pueblo de la costa inglesa, te transportas hasta allí y puedes sentirte como un vecino más. Al principio con tantas descripciones, nombres de casas y personajes es algo lioso, pero con el paso de los capítulos te vas acostumbrando. El crimen está bien aunque quizás le ha faltado algo de ritmo para mi gusto, pero es entretenido y el final merece la pena. Sin embargo, desde mi punto de vista quizás ha sido más rápido si comparamos con el resto del libro, y se podía haber añadido unas pocas hojas más.

ENGLISH: Ingenious detective novel in which the most unlikely character turns out to be the murderer. Of course, it is a bit macabre from the beginning.

ESPAÑOL: Ingeniosa novela policiaca en la que el personaje más improbable resulta ser el asesino. Eso sí, es un poco macabra desde el principio.

Because of it’s relatively short length, this didn’t drag at a slow pace like some of the longer PD James novels I have read, instead keeping a fairly decent speed as our familiar hero Adam Dalglish helps solve a murder in an isolated small community on the windy coast of East Anglia. Again. You’d have thought he’d avoid visiting.

It was okay. Entertaining enough, kept me guessing, nicely written with some clever descriptions and observations. The denouement was a little cliched (the old trope of the bad guy explaining how and why they did the crime after they are caught) and I wasn’t wholly convinced by the motive, but it was a well-written little mystery that kept me amused for a few hours.

3.5 stars, but rounding up because I find these very readable.

I did find the final resolution was a bit out of the blue. It comes to Dalgliesh suddenly, and it reminded me of some Christie novels in the sense that there's no way the reader could have predicted it. It's mroe just a flash of inspiration on how the mystery could have been resolved. The reader doesn't have enough information to resolve it.

I did predict the killer, but that was mainly due to type, and a general assumption that the other characters seemed less likely types. This isn't my favourite in the series (I think that's still the first one), but I did like it. P.D. James is very good at creating secondary characters. I'm starting to feel that I'd like to learn a bit more about Dalgliesh himself, at this point. I get that the point is that he's trying not to impose his personality on the suspects, but a bit more information might be nice.

This one didn't age as well.

1.5 stars. I did finish it, but will be loath to try another James book.