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Adam Dalgliesh #7

A Taste for Death

p.d. james

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When the quiet Little Vestry of St. Matthew's Church becomes the blood-soaked scene of a double murder, Scotland Yard Commander Adam Dalgliesh faces an intriguing conundrum: How did an upper-crust Minister come to lie, slit throat to slit throat, next to a neighborhood derelict of the lowest order? Challenged with the investigation of a crime that appears to have endless motives, Dalgliesh explores the sinister web spun around a half-burnt diary and a violet-eyed widow who is pregnant and full of malice--all the while hoping to fill the gap of logic that joined these two disparate men in bright red death. . . .

459 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1986
Series
Adam Dalgliesh
Literary awards
macavity award, grand prix de littérature policière, cwa silver dagger, edgar award, palle rosenkrantz prisen, 
Places
london england, england, 

This edition

Format
459 pages, Paperback
Published
November 8, 2005 by Vintage
ISBN
9781400096473
ASIN
1400096472
Language
English
Characters More characters

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About the author

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p.d. james

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P. D. James, byname of Phyllis Dorothy James White, Baroness James of Holland Park, (born August 3, 1920, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England—died November 27, 2014, Oxford), British mystery novelist best known for her fictional detective Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard.

The daughter of a middle-grade civil servant, James grew up in the university town of Cambridge. Her formal education, however, ended at age 16 because of lack of funds, and she was thereafter self-educated. In 1941 she married Ernest C.B. White, a medical student and future physician, who returned home from wartime service mentally deranged and spent much of the rest of his life in psychiatric hospitals. To support her family (which included two children), she took work in hospital administration and, after her husband's death in 1964, became a civil servant in the criminal section of the Department of Home Affairs. Her first mystery novel, Cover Her Face (1962), introduced Dalgliesh and was followed by six more mysteries before she retired from government service in 1979 to devote full time to writing.

Dalgliesh, James's master detective who rises from chief inspector in the first novel to chief superintendent and then to commander, is a serious, introspective person, moralistic yet realistic. The novels in which he appears are peopled by fully rounded characters, who are civilized, genteel, and motivated. The public resonance created by James's singular characterization and deployment of classic mystery devices led to most of the novels featuring Dalgliesh being filmed for television. James, who earned the sobriquet “Queen of Crime,” penned 14 Dalgliesh novels, with the last, The Private Patient, appearing in 2008.

James also wrote An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972) and The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982), which centre on Cordelia Gray, a young private detective. The first of these novels was the basis for both a television movie and a short-lived series. James expanded beyond the mystery genre in The Children of Men (1992; film 2006), which explores a dystopian world in which the human race has become infertile. Her final work, Death Comes to Pemberley (2011)—a sequel to Pride and Prejudice (1813)—amplifies the class and relationship tensions between Jane Austen's characters by situating them in the midst of a murder investigation. James's nonfiction works include The Maul and the Pear Tree (1971), a telling of the Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811 written with historian T.A. Critchley, and the insightful Talking About Detective Fiction (2009). Her memoir, Time to Be in Earnest, was published in 2000. She was made OBE in 1983 and was named a life peer in 1991.

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Community Reviews

Rating(3.9 / 5.0, 99 votes)
5 stars
25(25%)
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36(36%)
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38(38%)
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99 reviews All reviews
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TungstenOre
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Back when my cable company had the wonderful Ovation channel, I watched an hour long show from the 70s about Agatha Christie. Not because I like Christie; I don't but because as an English major, I felt obliged to watch it (does anyone else feel this way?). One of the people interviewed on the show was P.D. James. Her comments about Christie vocalized why I didn't like Christie (I couldn't quite explain why I didn't like her). Because of this, I picked up A Taste for Death at a used book sale.

A Taste for Death isn't James' best book. I think The Murder Room, for instance, is far better. It is still a good book with wonderful characters.
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Helio
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This is a great British mystery, 7 books in one, about a baronet's death and the people involved. Good drama, murder and intrigue. Happy reading!
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HungryNacht
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Tortuously long, morose, but well-written

Not so sure I’ll read another one. This was my first. Towards the end I did a lot of skimming. Nevertheless, I thought it was richly written. Hats off to the narrator. What a lot to read aloud.
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Coob919
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I'd like to rate this at a bit less than four stars as I found it somewhat ponderous. While the story is fine, James seems to burden the reader with perhaps too much detail & description. Also, I found the timing to be a bit too slow, especially since the murderer is revealed too far from the story's ending. She spends what I thought was an inordinate amount of time after the solution delving into the messy psyches and relationships of the various characters. Some excitement towards the end, but I found the book, on balance, less satisfying than others in this series.
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datmanlyman
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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James at her best--kind of an early/middle Dalgliesh novel with Kate Miskin playing an important role both in the investigation and as a developing character who is no longer in awe of her boss. John Massingham is relegated more the to the background in this one.

They are investigating what is either a double murder or a murder and suicide but the two victims (or one victim and one criminal, now dead) are from different worlds--or seem to be. One is Sir Paul Berowne, recently resigned as a Minister of the Crown, giving up a political career that had him tabbed as the "next Prime Minister but one" while the other is Harry Mack, a local tramp. The scene of the crime is the vestry of a church in London where Berowne was spending the night, apparently praying or thinking about his change in career while Harry often spent the night, although on the porch wrapped against the elements--he didn't like people and he didn't like to be inside.

There quite a few persons of interest although no suspects at first, but a group of friends and family of Sir Paul, none of them terribly likely as a murderer. Dalgliesh and his squad--a newly constituted unit of Scotland Yard handling cases that might embarrass the government or at least prove politically vexing--use the time honored British detective methods of deduction to eliminate almost all of the potential persons of interest while still making use of current forensic science.

James is at her best while describing the interplay of class and, to some extent, gender, among the police, the suspects and those simply affected by the crime.

NOTE: I read the hardcover edition of this book, gotten from the library. The only editions available for selection on goodreads are the audiobooks.
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betatestedurm0m
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Long, long, long. A quote from the next book I picked up would be good advise for the author and editors or A Taste for Death.

"A good tale moves with a dreamlike speed from event to event, pausing only to say as much as is needed and no more." Introduction to Fairy tales from the brothers Grimm by Philip Pullman

Quotable:
This had been followed by a sense of personal outrage, an emptiness and then a surge of melancholy, not strong enough to be called grief but keener than mere regret, which had surprised him by its intensity.
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JJnie
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I don't know what to say here, but this book really dragged toward the end and the treatment of the female police officer was just simply ridiculous. I lived in the UK for several years and PD James is a very popular author, but I can't see it with this book as an example.

It's a perfectly serviceable mystery, but nothing that really stood out for me.

Read it if you can find it.
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PoeticJustice
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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darkness in the vestry...
It is easy to argue that the best of murder mystery writers in English over the past thirty years is P.D. James. Her wonderful prose, dark vision and immaculately rendered settings immerse the reader in complex tales of loss and redemption. I heard her interviewed on the radio once and was struck at what a comedian she was; it would never have occurred to me based on her books. Sir Paul Berowne is found dead in the vestry of a church. Adam Dalgliesh gets the case, along with two younger officers. The investigation draws the reader deep into the lives of all involved, along with images of a fading England and a particularly troubled woman police officer. This is high quality work and worth the time invested in reading. Best during a long evening in the easy chair with Oolong tea.
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