I rather liked this one, with just one issue.

What I enjoyed was the setting! On the English shore, and among a few cottages and manor estate-style homes so close to the water you can feel it in every breath. (Yes, I know the sensation!) It's also often gloomy and stormy, and the water is edging closer and closer to some of these homes with every high tide. It's a lovely, secluded, somewhat ominous setting with only a brief foray here or there into the city of London.

In this, Inspector Adam Dalgliesh's third story, he's relegated to a back seat, in that yes, there's been a murder - a rather intriguing and gory one - but this time he's not the lead investigator.

Dalgliesh's in Monksmere, this seaside area, to visit his elderly, maiden aunt, his only living relative. He does this once or twice a year just to 'get away.' It gives him the opportunity to just walk and read, sit by a warm fire, eat home-cooked meals and forget about anything/everything that's bothering him. (What's bothering him here is whether or not he wants to propose to his long-time love.) Unfortunately...

Enter the dead body, on a little boat, hands cut off. And the closest neighbors, all of whom are suspects. They're a weird, eccentric lot and I kept notes on each so I wouldn't mix them up. (Didn't need the notes, it turned out.) Enter Inspector Reckless, local authority in charge of finding out who killed the dead man while Dalgliesh looks on, offers tips, but more or less tries to stay out of the way. Unfortunately, he can't.

A great and gloomy story with ocean waves, shingled beaches and storms galore. Large, cozy fireplaces, quaint cottages and overbearing manor houses. Paths through thorny brush and an ocean which even then - written in the 1960's - was rapidly encroaching on buildings too close to the water's edge. Loved it!

However, at the end, there was a rather long infodump. I don't disagree with infodumps; sometimes they're necessary in books and even in life. Like, why did you do that? And you get from your spouse/child/parent/whoever a long and detailed explanation. It happens!

So five stars for locale and characters. One point off for the long explanation at the end.

Still, I love me some Adam Dalgliesh and am looking forward to No. 4 in this well-written series.

Still an early book in the series... I liked the first two much better. This one was pretty bad. Well written as far as that goes, but it's completely unbelievable along with being draggy. In fact go read Roman Clodia's review, it sums it up perfectly.

След огромното разочарование, което представляваше за мен втората част за комисар Адам Далглиш, "Смъртта на писателя" беше някакво подобрение. Поредицата обаче определено не е моята чаша чай.

Книгата отново беше някак прекалено протяжна и бавна в развитието на историята. Много от подробностите ми бяха излишни, а краят - поднесен като на тепсия, изневиделица. Разследване на практика нямаше. Нямаше размисли, логическо проследяване и тълкуване на фактите, никакви дедукции. Само мимоходом споменаване, че той главният герой е разгадал загатката отдавна, макар да не е решил да сподели нищо от идеите си с нас.

Накратко, нямаше ги онези неща, заради които почитателите на криминалните романи и уютни мистерии посягаме към рафтовете. Главният герой така и не успя да ми стане симпатичен. Всъщност останах толкова индиферентна, все едно не преживявам част от живота си с този персонаж, а е случаен човек, с когото съм си казала разсеяно "добър ден".

In this third Adam Dalgleish mystery, I've come to realize that with P.D. James, the pleasure is in the prose and the characters, not so much in solving the mystery. Unlike some writers who plant clues and red herrings so the reader can attempt to keep up with the detective and solve the case, James' mysteries (at least those I've read so far) end in unpredictable ways because they hinge on information the reader cannot know or predict. Usually I find a mystery that springs information on the reader at the end to be quite annoying -- unfairly breaking the unspoken rules of the game. But in James, it doesn't seem unfair or annoying somehow, especially now that I've realized her approach. It's a dated style -- "closed room" cases, not much action, very little blood and gore, and confessions at the end. (There are also some unfortunate casual slurs against gays and the disabled, which are a relic of her time, I suppose.)

Nevertheless, going along for a windswept tour of the wild Suffolk coast to visit Dalgleish's Aunt Jane makes for a fun excursion. Well, for me anyway. For Dalgleish, not so much. We learn more about him in this book, mostly through interior dialogue, discovering that he is a bit of a tortured soul as he walks alone on the bleak cliffs, trying to decide whether or not to marry his girlfriend. He has a role model for his eventual decision in his Aunt Jane, a rugged, self-contained, loner who devotes her life to observing and writing about birds. A competent woman of few words, Aunt Jane offers a nice contrast to the frippy and frilly middle-aged romance writer who simpers over her bratty niece and throws herself at a recent widower. These are just two of an eccentric cast of bickering and jealous writers who populate the village where Dalgleish spends his holiday. When one of them -- a hack mystery writer -- is found floating in a dingy with his hands chopped off -- Dalgleish can't help but get involved. And neither could I!

Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh can't have a quiet holiday. I like the way he thinks of a murder case and the writing style is nice.

I read 6 James books trying to get on friendly terms with this writer and her detective, Inspector/Chief Inspector/Commander Dalgliesh, and failed. A lot of that failure I set at said detective's door: if I'm going to read a detective series using a single detective/investigator as pov and protagonist, that figure needs to be not only intelligent and preferably complex but sympatico. Not necessarily faulty, but certainly of flesh and blood, with some sort of emotions beyond detachment, and connections to people around him. Lindsay Davis's Roman detective Falco is a perfect example. I'm somewhat out of charity with Falco now that he's become a conservative paterfamilias, but he's still part of a huge family network, not just his own wife and kids but her family, and his five sisters' families, AND their husbands, (when surviving,) AND his own parents. He is a human person with human connectivity.
Dalgliesh, au contraire, may have had a father but I've never heard a word about his mother, he has no siblings, and only one aunt, now carked. After 6 books he has had no connection but a tepid flirtation with any woman. And he's supposed to write poetry,but the one example offered certainly left me, like most everything else about him, cold.
In itself, this might not have meant a parting of the ways. But add repeated irritations and my patience slips. Forex, repeated misuse of the word "protaqonist," repeated appearances of need for "privacy" even when all these people seem to live in isolated cottages anyway - repeatedly gloomy seasons and settings - doesn't spring ever come or the sun actually shine for P. D. James, except for one glimpse at the end of *Devices and Desires*? and an innate and probably unconscious snobbery - there are very definitely People we Know and People we Only Know About in every one of these books.
Add repetitive plot elements - pair of women living together who may be lesbians, somebody with a lot of money that his heir, often one of the women, desperately needs, persons carefully deployed all round said person who might also need money, and to add feminist insult to reader injury, at least two femme fatales who appear to destroy men just for the pleasure of it, and said patience begins to fray.
What snapped it, however, was this book in particular. Not that the plot's so bad in itself. Not that Dalgliesh or the rest of them are any snobbier than usual. Not that the one gay character so far gets a bad press, not even that the climactic action scene is even stagier and less plausible than usual. No, what finally got my goat was P. D. James and her characters' attitudes to disability.
There is one disabled character in this novel. I'm not sure why or how someone able to use crutches would also have to wear rigid leg irons from ankle to thigh - especially when presumably going to bed - and need a wheelchair into the bargain. Let's put all that down to the period of writing, which was 1967. But the attitude of the characters, and, apparently the writer, to the said disabled person would be disgusting from a Victorian novelist. When such reappeared in a later novel, as summed up by Dalgliesh, thinking of any disabled person, "with irritation and dislike," I'd had enough. If this is the queen of crime, then in my view, she needs to abdicate. One thing is certain,I will not buy another of her books.

4.5 stars. The third in the series and my favourite so far. The story is very unique and the descriptions of the storm tossed Suffolk coast mirrored the inner turmoil of Dalgeish.

I absolutely adored the story - it was my favorite Dalgliesh murder mystery so far. I hoped that I would finally be able to give more than 3 stars - all the way up to THAT ending.

The whole reveal of who the killer was and the solving of how Dalgliesh came up with the facts was very faux and felt extremely artificial. Not believable at all, which left me rather sad, as the solution and final reveal is obviously a big part of a murder mystery. Oh well. On to the next.

The novel was okay but I found the whole taped confession thing to be contrived and tedious. She taped it for herself? And wore it around her neck? It seemed silly.

This book could be called "Unnecessarily Complicated Causes." It also suffered from a fair amount of boring descriptive passages about scenery and houses, and characters who were too similar and ill-defined to keep track of. It ended with a too-convenient confession on tape, found after the murderer too-conveniently died. Also, the murderer's death comes at the end of a superficially dramatic adventure scene, involving an attempted rescue from a flooding house during a storm, which was irrelevant and uninteresting. Also irrelevant and uninteresting were all the sections of the book treating the Inspector's ambivalence about his long-distance girlfriend who does not appear in the book herself.

One last try. The story wasn't too bad and it was interesting to have Dalgliesh visiting his aunt and not officially on duty, but the ending was a sham. It was a stupid and unlikely way to wrap up this story and explain away the mystery.

This is the 3rd Adam Dalgliesh novel and we are starting to get a better insight into him, as the plot involves Adam taking a holiday to see his aunt in her home in a small community in Suffolk.
PD James does a very good job of creating the desolate atmosphere of the area. This novel was written around the time that the first Sizewell nuclear reactor went on line, but although Sizewell is mentioned as a place, there is no reference to the nuclear installation. However, in my mind the association is enough to increase the sense of menace further.
Aunt Dalgliesh lives in close proximity to a number of writers and outrageous gossips. A handless body is found and it is clear that the murderer is one of the isolated community. Adam Dalgliesh is not directly investigating the case, but it would be impossible for him to ignore it.
The perpetrator is well hidden and I really did not have any idea who it was. There were some clues, but they were buried in how we look at things. I’ll say no more, but urge anyone reading this to join me as I move in through this series.
Faber and Faber is the publisher of my copy and I was not impressed by the misspelt name on the back cover blurb. I’ve also just noticed the same mistake in the book description on Goodreads too.