It was rather funny when the people were wondering if the man died of natural causes or not when he had his hands cut off. But then it was a little boring to learn about the life of most people surrounding the dead guy, however, it seems that is the style of the author. Not sure if it suits me and maybe these books simply are not for me.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS a BIG WHACKING SPOILER!!!!!!!!!

This early book in the Adam Dalgliesh series by P.D. James had a good pace, nice atmosphere (rural coastal Suffolk, England), and a not-too-ponderous Dalgliesh. (He hadn't gotten all full of himself yet, as he appears to have, later in the series.) The plot was pretty good too. But I had one major problem with the characters, and granted, this book was written in the 1970s, so it was "of it's time" but

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...okay, it's safe to say now:

The character with a disability in her legs was uniformly referred to as "crippled,"
and surprise, surprise, she turned out to be

the killer. Honestly, if it weren't such a cliche, I'd be disturbed, but it was such an anachronism to see the person with a "non-normal" characteristic be the murderer. The other quaint idea was that she killed the victim because he offered her the guest room instead of his own bed when she galloped over there to comfort him on the suicide of his wife. A little Freud-heavy for my taste.

I imagine as the years went by, P.D. had her consciousness raised. But this one is truly dated to a time that thankfully has passed.

Unnatural Causes by P.D. James is the third in a series featuring Adam Dalgliesh, a Scotland Yard inspector. While visiting his aunt, Adam becomes involved in the sudden death of Maurice Seton, a famous mystery writer. His corpse is found in a floating rowboat with both hands chopped off at the wrists. Adam tries to remain distant from the local investigation , but soon gets drawn into the bizarre circumstances and the unusual lineup of possible suspects.

This is the third of the Adam Dalgliesh series. I've read the first but not the second, but that hasn't lessened the story here at all.

Dalgliesh is looking forward to a few weeks of relaxation during his holiday at the seashore with his aunt at her cottage. She lives in a small village that seems to house nothing but writers, a place where everyone enjoys their solitude. But as soon as he arrives a writer is murdered,the corpse mutilated and Dalgliesh finds himself at odds with the local Inspector, who seems to resent Dalgliesh's presence.

A good one. Dalgliesh's moods swing between irritated and depressed, yet he always is cool. The suspects are well-written and unlikeable.

Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh had been looking forward to a quiet holiday at his aunt's cottage on Monksmere Head, one of the furthest-flung spots on the remote Suffolk coast

As always, PD James's greatest strength is her prose. It's excellent. And even though I didn't get as good a grasp on the characters in Unnatural Causes as I did when I read the first two AD novels, I was generally okay with her characterisation work here too.

I say "generally", because the eventual murderer's personality and motivations made absolutely no impression on me at all. Even during the climactic (and otherwise well-written) scene of the novel I was thinking, "Really? Them? Is this a fake-out?" The ensuing denouement was also laughably hackneyed, even more so when I recall that Dalgliesh actually thinks to himself at one point in the novel that one of the reasons he can't bring himself to read much detective fiction is because of how its heroes always seem to wind up solving cases based on evidence he himself couldn't even get a warrant with, or confessions that no one in their right mind would give. It's almost as if James is mocking her audience with the contradiction. And while I'm all for an author poking fun at crime fiction tropes, here it sits really, really incongruously with the tone and setting of the novel as a whole (not to mention with Dalgliesh's character, possibly the least amusing detective hero I've ever come across).

Overall a reasonable read, and I'm not put off the AD series by any means. However, Unnatural Causes was not, in my opinion, James's best work, nor an example of the genre at its finest.

‘For a moment their eyes were level and they gazed at each other, wordlessly. It seemed to Dalgliesh that in that moment some kind of communication passed but whether those black eyes held a warning or an appeal he was never afterwards able to decide.’ (p190)

Satisfyingly traditional detective fiction from a skilled practitioner, with some satirical barbs.

Unnatural Causes is early in Baroness James’ writing career, albeit written in her mid-forties, the third Dalgliesh story. The already somewhat famous Scotland Yard detective is taking a much needed holiday after a gruelling case, to rest and recuperate with his maiden aunt, the twitcher Jane Dalgliesh, long resident on the isolated Suffolk coast in a small community consisting almost entirely of second rate writers of varying sorts; one turns up in a small row boat (witness the rather chilling underexposed cover of my edition), very dead minus his hands, chopped off at the wrists. Jane’s chopper is missing.

Because he is staying with his Aunt, Dalgliesh finds himself with an unofficial role. Suffolk is the bailiwick of the local CID, in the person of the wonderfully named Inspector Reckless, who is anything but. The local policeman is in charge, which makes for awkwardness and unspoken friction- after all Dalgliesh outranks Reckless by several rungs. It is an especially interesting dynamic about how the police bureaucracy works, with its protocols, niceties and assumptions. This attention to how the workplace functions is welcome; an assurance the author knows what she is taking about. Jo Nesbø is similarly very good at this in his Harry Hole stories.

There is more than one murder, of course, which adds to the gathering tension. The story is peopled by interesting characters brought to life in immaculate and elegant prose, although occasionally one has to keep reading to clarify which of the suspects James is talking about. Her detective Dalgliesh means well despite his traditional detective’s commitment issues, and of course he is a writer himself, with two volumes of poetry to his credit. James has fun with these Suffolk writers: the author without his hands, a whinger and not particularly successful. Other literary locals are not much chop either.

She also creates the Cadaver Club, an exclusive, all-male London establishment devoted to the subject (rather than the practice) of murder and peopled by barristers, solicitors, former judges, detective writers and enthusiasts. She takes particular pleasure pointing out that while women are excluded from membership, and even visiting, there is no such prohibition on their books which may be found readily in the club library.

P D James’ debt to Agatha Christie and traditional English detective fiction is apparent. We are among a small gathering of isolated suspects, united by their enmities and slights, real and imagined, with plenty of motivation, professional or financial, for foul play. It is not quite old dark house, but a number of the cottages belonging to the locals are in danger during the dark and stormy nights which are not infrequent along this coast, including the night of the thrilling climax. Dalgliesh has a clue of course that death by natural causes might not be entirely accurate but naturally James makes us wait until the denouement for the revelation, with the longest confession I have ever read in a detective novel.

A suitably intriguing tale with colourful characters and a genuinely exciting climax.

PS: A note to fellow claustrophobes: read with care.

Regalo de mami. Primer libro leído de esta autora. Atrapante.

Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard is on holiday in the English countryside, visiting his aunt, Jane, after the successful completion of an investigation. What Dalgliesh gets instead is first the news that one of the village's regulars is missing -- and then, that said regular's body is found dead, floating in a dinghy offshore.

Dalgliesh, though not officially part of the ensuing investigation, nevertheless finds himself involved in all that happens after the body was found.

In addition to crime, Dalgliesh has a personal issue that is weighing on his mind. His relationship with Deborah has reached the point where Dalgliesh felt he must make a decision whether to make a formal commitment to the woman he loved or hang on to his independence.

P.D. James has written an atmospheric, character-driven, tightly-wound plot. There are plenty of red herrings throughout the story that left me surprised at the guilty party. A long, satisfying denouement ties up all the loose ends.

Very happy that I stuck with this series after struggling a bit with the last book. Absolutely zipped through the 3rd in this well written series. It was a murder mystery within the writing of a murder mystery, and I was completely hooked by the shocking opening chapter.

Adam is quickly becoming one of my favourite literary characters. I loved seeing him moving from a secluded sea side village with his like tempered Aunt, to the exclusive Cadaver Club, on to the underbelly of London, in search of answers.

The characters were exquisitely portrayed. I especially enjoyed Mr. Plant, Reckless and Luker.

Best of all I didn’t see the end coming. I highly recommend this one!

2.5

In Unnatural Causes, P.D. James leads the reader into a fictional world in which famous writer Maurice Seton has just been murdered and the whole of a small community of writers are now living in suspicion and fear awaiting either the next murder, the capture, or both.

Adam Dalgliesh is ostensibly the hero of this story. However, from the beginning I recognized that the "un-involvement" he accuses his aunt of after the unveiling the murderer describes the entirety of his attitude both towards his love life and the case he's unofficially working. He was entirely flat.

Throughout the novel P.D. James continuously tells us that Adam feels a certain way, but even beyond the detachment that the third-person narrator feels we never really get a sense of Adam's emotions or thoughts beyond the superficial. Adam's emotions are usually described as inexplicable or unreasonable, and the other characters' reaction to him did nothing to breed interest in the readers' mind, either. It's clear that all the other characters, including his own aunt and his would-be wife, find him just as insipid as we do.

Moving past this defect in the main character's development, I would like to say that the main characters' personalities were a waste in every possible way. They had the potential to be an interesting cast: Celia, the pretentious, snobby, yet secretly despairing middle-aged romance novelist; Bryce, washed-up reviewer and critic; and Oliver, the mysterious loverboy and play-killer. Yet these people turn out to be nothing more or less than cardboard props in the long run and it is the least developed and sympathetic characters that become important.

Overall, this could've made for a very interesting story, especially in the unconventional way that the murder and the murder method were revealed at the end. However, these flat and pointless characters killed it for me.