One expects (at least this one does) excellent literary mysteries form P. D. James. "Death of an Expert Witness" is just about perfect even by the high standards she has set for herself. The self-contained community in which a murder occurs that must be solved by Adam Dalgliesh is a forensic laboratory in the countryside not far from Cambridge and the cast of characters include absent minded professors, power hungry careerists, attractive damsels in distress and a few people who are so unpleasant that you know they couldn't be guilty of the murder even though the reader may wish they were.

This is one of the better mysteries so far in the series - with a lot of suspense and tension, inevitable red herrings, and more plausible motives. However, it continues the tradition of the previous books - elements I didn't like - a full cast of unlikable characters, a detestable victim, and a rushed solution derived from intuition rather than reasoning. It deviates in the way the characters are introduced. In earlier books, the setting is introduced first, and then the backstory of the characters is built up through conversation or inner thoughts. Here, the main characters and their stories are introduced first, one after the other, and by the second or third you have a pretty clear idea of who is going to be killed. It also makes the initial 20% of the book rather bland, because it only serves to underline the depravity of the would-be victim.

Even though Dalgliesh's character is more sympathetic in this book than before, and the mystery is good, I am not inclined to continue with this series. I feel it doesn't say much for a mystery series if you cant care about the characters or even the lead. The characters are almost all mean or shallow. As for the hero, I find him inconsistent and unsympathetic, with no endearing personality traits. He may be publishing poetry, but investigating officers are no celebrities and poets are even more obscure, but in this series everyone seems to know of him and his poetic tendencies. There is no continuation of characters, not even a young subordinate or a bungling constable.
Contrast (unfair, I know!) it with the two most famous fictional detectives - despite Poirot's vanity and Holmes's detachment, they are both kind. Even though they may not respect the intelligence of Dr Watson and Captain Hastings, they have a fondness for them. They are not uncivil even to Lestrade and Japp.
The writing is good, but the solution of the mystery leaves much to be desired - critical pieces of evidence are withheld from reader and only brought out at the end, and the logical process of deduction is missing. So, I am leaving it here, and I don't think it will make it to my favorite murder mysteries list.

Possibly ★★★ 12. But it looks as though my rating is about the same as the first time I read it. No memory of the resolution of this book. Maybe it was the fact that I didn't hear it all at one time. It had to go back to the library for a while. So I may have forgotten part of the beginning of the book while I waited to get it again.

Still working my way through P.D. James. A Taste for Death is next.

El final fue una sorpresa.

Un libro interesante en el que aparecen muchos personajes y cualquiera podría ser el culpable. Me ha fascinado la forma en la que está escrito pues, a pesar de tener muchísimas descripciones no se me ha hecho nada denso y las páginas volaban sin darme cuenta.
Para mí, una de las mejores cosas que tiene esta historia ha sido la ambientación y como he sido capaz de imaginarme cada uno de los escenarios como si los estuviera visitando yo misma.
La resolución del caso me ha sorprendido y no me lo esperaba, así que no puedo pedir más.

Not the best Adam Dalgliesh mystery but an entertaining read nonetheless.

This was not my favorite of James' books. The extensive cast of characters and their interconnected lives were not only confusing, but also pushed too far beyond the edge of plausible. Certainly happenstance, family ties and being in the right place at the right (or wrong) time is the keystone to most great mystery stories, but James' overachievement in this area made less of her talent. James set up a story with 30+ characters, and then defaulted to creating complicated sexual histories in order to establish connections, all the while requiring that the reader believe that all the characters live in the same area, are associated with the same laboratory, and happened to be engaged in their scandalous deeds right around the time of the murder.
It was a little much.

For some reason, I just cannot connect with PD James's writing. She writes well, poetically even. But somehow I never seem to care about her characters, and separating the innocent from the guilty. Who lives, who dies, who cares? I can't put my finger on it really, because the concepts are there. I don't think she is a bad storyteller. Perhaps it is the dislike I feel for her detective, Adam Dalgliesh. He comes across as a cold man, although since he writes poetry, I suppose we are to assume he has a deep well of emotions. Perhaps because her characters too human, and therefore not wholly sympathetic.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

This is the sixth book in PD James's Adam Dalgliesh series. I don't have much to say about this book. It isn't one of my favorites of the series, but it is a solid entry. There wasn't any standout characters for me as there have been in previous novels which could be why I didn't quite get into it. However, I still like this a lot more than I did the third entry into the series, Unnatural Causes.

This book follows Commander Dalgliesh and DS Massimo as they investigate the death of an unpopular, but brilliant forensic pathologist.

One of the main reasons that I began to read PD James was that while I think her writing is gripping and really pulls you into the mysteries, with a few exceptions, I really wanted to see her progression with female and queer representation in her books. As you go through her library you can see how Miss James changes the way she handled the representation for both women and the queer community.

I think this is one of the better representations she's had so far for both female and queer characters. It grows with every book and I am curious to see how well she's able to represent both of these groups in her later work as I read. ( Please note I am talking about representation for the time that it is written. It is in no way great rep for current times, and I wish it were way better, but I do read with that critical thinking hat on.)

The mystery here is a bit of a locked room mystery so that gives it some intrigue, and the reveal of what happened wasn't cheesy, but it is definitely not one of the top ones so far in the series for me.

Recommend though.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5 stars.

The plot is a good one and the setting near Ely and the fens interesting. In parts the author is overly descriptive and Dalgliesch is his dour self. The forensic lab where the murder takes place was interesting and the now mostly historic methods of identifying suspects. DNA not even thought about.

The characters are unlikeable such as Domenica the sister of the director who is beautiful and sexy but also without depth. Massingham the assistant to Dalgliesch is an interesting character who upsets his boss towards the end.

Dr Kerrison the assistant pathologist is hoping for a promotion, is in the middle of a bitter divorce, has custody of his two children with his daughter mentally disturbed as well as he is having an affair with the directors wife. In the tv version he is played by such a mild character it’s difficult to suspect him.

Atmospherically is where P.D James excelled with Brenda’s panicked escape thinking someone is going to murder her. Overall a good readable story.

#6 in the Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh brings him to the fens area in England to investigate the murder of a leading biological forensic expert who works in in the area's forensic center. The story starts out with character sketches of the various central suspects in the murder then into the mystery itself. This background allows the reader to see what they leave out in their later statements to Dalgliesh. As usual in mysteries, there is more to the characters than meets the eye, and that it takes more than clues to solve a murder.

A bit disappointing to me is that the story ends leaving loose ends regarding a few characters and I would prefer to see how things work out.

Death of an Expert Witness feels like a classic P.D. James Dalgliesh novel- a forensic scientist with a lot of enemies is discovered murdered in the lab, and Dalgliesh is called in to find out whodunnit. The setting for this Dalgliesh outing is a private forensic lab near the small town of Ely, which is 14 miles north of Cambridge. Ely is part of England’s fenlands, which is a low-lying coastal plain similar to Holland. James’ ability to tie her mysteries to her setting is one of my favourite things about her novels, and here she is true to form- the marshy fens are dark and sparsely populated and filled with quirky characters who just want to be left alone.

The unfortunate expert witness of the title exits the novel about a fifth of the way into the novel, via a blunt object to the head in his own lab. Initially the witnesses and physical evidence is slim but Dalgliesh quickly gathers a long list of suspects, all of whom have a reason- from work feuds to family inheritances- to wish the scientist dead. As with most of her novels, we are provided with a lot of detail about all of the suspects, which is occasionally a bit tedious, especially in the beginning when the murder hasn’t occurred and you’re not sure how all these minutely described lives fit together. The upside to all the detail is a real sense of time and place- set in the late ‘70s, there are many period and place details (no internet or cellphones and lots of turtlenecks) and an exploration of themes that are more universal and unfortunately more timeless (parents thinking marriage is a better option for their teenage daughter than a STEM career; being cut out of an inheritance because of sexuality).

I liked this Dalgliesh mystery better than The Black Tower, but still find Dalgliesh hard to relate to- although maybe that’s the point? I’m starting to wonder if Dalgliesh is cold and bland so that he can be a blank slate for the reader to imagine themselves solving the crime instead.