An interesting mix of the usual and unusual. It's normal for the murder victim to be hated by multiple people (for example, Georgette Heyer's A Christmas Party). It's also normal for a forensic lab to be involved in a murder investigation. What was unusual was that the murder victim should be one of the members of the lab, killed in the lab, and that his fellow employees should become suspects. I wonder why this plot line doesn't get more use? After all, people of all walks of life have the same kinds of personal conflicts.

Another issue I found myself contemplating, especially in these physical distancing times, was how much of my life passes without having any kind of alibi. We don't live our lives expecting to be suspected of a crime. Living alone as I do, I would have a difficult task to find another person to vouch for me for most of every day.

James saw people, their virtues and their foibles, rather clearly, in my opinion. I find her plots believable and her characters realistic. The ailing elderly, the optimistic young people, the dissatisfied wives, the hen-pecked husbands, the unhappily divorced, the drunks, the church goers, they are all represented in her novels. They feel real. I can even understand how Dalgleish has ended up in the chilly emotional state that we find him in. Once again, I am struck with the idea that we all have pasts, not all of which we would be willing to proclaim to the world, and that we will get to keep secret unless we are caught up in a serious investigation.

Cross posted at my blog:

https://wanda-thenextfifty.blogspot.c...

I have now read all of the Adam Dalgliesh mysteries! What a series of books. PD James was such a good mystery writer

As much a social commentary as it is a murder mystery, this novel is primarily a document of the turbulent conditions in Britain when it was written. Most of the characters, pushed beyond the edge by economic, familial, and romantic woes, could plausibly have committed the central murder—all it took was a slight push to send the killer over the edge. The rich cast of characters crowd out the purported protagonist, who gets such a small amount of characterization that I felt like I knew nothing about him by the end. Good thing I can race right on to another Dalgliesh book to get to know him better, as I already have—James's writing is addictive and airtight.

James is an excellent mystery writer. This book kept me eagerly awaiting the revelation of the murderer. The only thing that detracted from my enjoyment was that the explanation of the murders was a little confusing because of the way James withheld some of the character's names. Plus, as with most mystery novels, there is a large cast of characters, so it was easy to get confused about who had done what and why. Overall, though, this is a compelling mystery, and James is very adept with descriptive details.

As good as the story was I am in awe of her descriptions. I could visualize everything in this book. It was quite good

It was a fine read, wasn't very exciting but would like to read more by P.D. James before I make my mind about her.

The mystery/plot is decent, but what is with the 400 pages of navel-gazing? I appreciate description and beautiful writing, but cap that at 10 pages, total, for the entire book. Also, every single person in every Dalgliesh book I've read so far has been disgusting and/or miserable. There is nobody who's ever non-maliciously happy, or quietly content, or even just not unhappy. Everybody oozes wretchedness. All of them. And what's with the incest? That's not a normal or usual or believable situation (my frustration on this front may be exacerbated by having just read from the Inspector Barnaby series, which is bizarrely fond of incest). I want to be happy that there's so much representation of gay couples, but it's done in such a token way that it's profoundly depressing, stereotypical, dismissive, smacks of pervasive homophobia, and is generally icky. And they're just as fucking wretched as everyone else.

I think this is my favorite James novel so far. She really is superb in all of her mysteries in the first half. I do think this one, as for me nearly all of them, goes down hill about a 1/4 before the end. And it is very sad. She has a way of creating sympathy for her characters. Her descriptions of them are so personal/intimate. I like that a lot and will try to do this too. This one was so good I'm moving right into the next on the list. 3 1/2 stars.

What a great title. Ask most people to name a PD James novel, and this is probably it.

A gloriously convoluted plot surrounding a Fens village, a forensic science laboratory, and a tightly-knit community linked in ways the reader cannot forsee. The clues are there but each is so fleetingly mentioned, so parsimonious, and so intertwined, that you will forget each and discount its importance. When the senior biologist at Hoggatt’s Laboratory is found dead, New Scotland Yard is called in. Commander Adam Dalgliesh arrives with Detective Inspector John Massingham; it is not the easiest of working partnerships, another layer of grit added to the oyster.

PD James’ observations are at times heart-rending. Of a victim’s elderly father: “The old man sat there, staring straight ahead. His hands, with the long fingers like those of his son, but with their skin dry and stained as withered leavers, hung heavily between his knees, grotesquely large for the brittle wrists.”

The technical detail, at which James is always so reliable, is interleaved here with the writing style I associate with the later Dalgliesh books. On his way to interview a bereaved relative, Dalgliesh stands on high ground and looks towards Hoggatt’s Laboratory. “Under the turbulent painter’s sky, with its changing clusters of white, grey and purple cumulus clouds massing against the pale azure blue of the upper air, and the sunlight moving fitfully across the fields and flittering on roofs and windows, it looked like an isolated frontier outpost, but welcoming, prosperous and secure. Violent death might lurk eastwards in the dark fenlands, but surely not under these neat domestic roofs.” But regular crime readers know that is exactly where crime lurks.

Dalgliesh’s observations, about the process of life and death, the motivation of murder, the role of life of art, of religion, of poetry, are becoming denser in the transition which elevated PD James’ books from crime fiction to literary fiction. There is so much more in her books than murder. “Death, thought Dalgliesh, obliterates family resemblance as it does personality; there is no affinity between the living and the dead.”
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Too many characters. Too many suspects. Too many details. Exciting mystery IF about 100 pages of “too much” were cut.

After having read a spate of mediocre detective fiction, I really enjoyed this one. The quality of the writing is high yet the narrative is easy to read. And, most importantly for such a book, the mystery itself is a great puzzle. The downside is that P.D. James' style of writing tends to leave her giving a lot of page space to develop the characters and when there are a number of 'closed room' suspects this can lead to the pace of the narrative dragging a little. But otherwise, this was a fantastic read.

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