adam is really growing on me i like that he’s serious yet cynical and pretty uninvested

DAME AGATHA CHRISTIE AND HER PEERS
BOOK 63 - 1975
Please, is this to be the P.D.James book that explains her popularity to me?
CAST - 2 stars: Big problem here. The voice of the author is right up front, on the first page. She hasn't introduced a character yet, but writes about medical students: "... with their long hair and short white coats, they looked like a gaggle of slightly disreputable bridesmaids..." Darn those Beatle- inspired haircuts from 1965 infecting a 1975 crop of doctors! Then the author writes that one character has an "unfortunate predilection for little girls." But wait, what's even worse? Adam Dalgiesh says (to a handicapped gay young man who has just lost his one great love): "He [a separate character outside the gay relationship] might have made himself useful instead of behaving like a hysterical queer." So, in James' universe, a pedophile is "unfortunate" but being gay is the worst thing ever. OK, Boomer! 1 star for the cast, plus another star for the best 2 characters in the book: Father Micheal Baddelay and Victor Holroyd, both dead when the book opens but both drive the rest of the story.
ATMOSPHERE - 1 star: This kind of nursing home/orphanage/home to the misfits of the world may have worked nicely at first, maybe in the early 1900's when the first full-length murder mysteries hit the shelves. By 1975 this is a worn trope, and rather hilarious at times. This big old house is by the sea, and the doctors and nurses favorite place to park their patients is half-way down a slope to the sea. Yea, James likes to kill off her handicapped patients this way, and often. Fun times for James I guess. There is the ominous Black Tower, true, all tall and dark and strong...and just like I like 'em. Problem is, the Black Tower has nothing at all to do with the story, but does make for a good cover.
CRIME - 1 star: Basically, people in wheelchairs wind up down on the rocks by the sea. Fun times, right?
INVESTIGATION - 1 star: You'll know the villain early, way before Adam even has a clue. (Hint: it's the one person who has no reason to be in this story at all.)
SOLUTION - 1 star: Like I say, you'll know the 'who' early. But as to the 'why', the one thing you MUST know, just one single word, pops up on page 316 of 346. 300 pages and not a single clue as to what's really going on. Back in the day, people were hung for less offenses than this author commits.
SUMMARY: 1.2 stars. No, I still don't get James' popularity. This homophobic, hateful, hold-the-BIG-CLUE for 316 pages, kill-off-handicapped-people, queers-are-worse-than-pedophiles is a seriously bad novel, stupendously outdated. P.D.James proves again she isn't a writer for me. But this novel won a Silver Dagger Award: I can only assume for very, very bad taste.

Superb murder mystery, wonderfully written with skilfully created characters, great psychological insight -- and a thrilling ending,

I don't understand how anyone can like this book.

Take the spitefulness of Melrose Place, add the sex appeal of Confederacy of Dunces, and sprinkle on the inanity of a Jane Austen heroine (none of it in a good way) and you've got The Black Tower. Who would ever do any of the things that the characters do in this book? And they do boring things, by the way, nonsensically boring - the worst kind of boring. Let's eat together every night in silence except for we'll take turns reading boring stuff aloud. Tonight is my turn, I'll read the phone book while you slouch in your wheelchair and masticate your food.

Since half the potential suspects are in wheelchairs, the inspector has to keep the reader guessing by constantly speculating that this or that criminal act could not have been committed by a resident in a wheelchair EXCEPT if they had an accomplice - ooooh!

The worst is at the climax...

(spoiler alert)
At the exact moment that the inspector finally figures out what is going on - not by good sleuthing but by having everything suddenly occur to him, it turns out that the bad guy has simultaneously figured out that he figured it out and disconnects the phone lines. The climatic confrontation is almost laughable. When the good guy tries to make the phone call, the bad guy pops out and with no other preamble, asks 'How did you know it was me?' It was like the start of a Laurel and Hardy routine: Um, how did you know that I know that it was you?? except it wasn't supposed to be funny.

The writing was fine, but the characters, the narrative, the action - not so great.

P.D. James and I have a history. It's fraught with frequent absences and long periods of silence. Then I get it into my head that I need to reacquaint myself with one of the grande dames of mystery. Sometimes it works, sometimes not so much. The Black Tower is one of my unsuccessful outings with James.

Commander Adam Dalgliesh receives a letter from a priest who was a family friend. Father Baddley requests that Dalgliesh visit him to provide professional advice. As Dalgliesh is recovering from an illness, he sees it as an opportunity to convalesce in the countryside. Upon arrival, he finds that the priest has passed due to heart failure. Father Baddley has been the religious adviser to a home for disabled people; his cottage is located on their property. Dalgliesh finds himself drawn into the community and soon it appears something is amiss. However, it took about 300 pages for the book to get interesting.

It's a 2.5 for me rounded up to a 3 because there is no question James can write. The path to the big reveal was just a little ponderous for me.

No me ha gustado. No me he enterado en realidad. No distinguía los personajes, no entendía la situación ni el lugar, las descripciones me han parecido un poco pesadas y el libro en general me ha aburrido.

Despite being written several years ago, this mystery still holds suspense until the final pages. It is also a great way to increase your vocabulary as P.D. James makes full use of the English Language.

I love P.D. James, but I wasn't crazy about this one. Because this novel takes place in a nursing home of sorts, the characters are all wracked with physical deformities. Their loss of limbs and bodily functions has left an emptiness that is so filled with self-hatred, spite, and anger that I found many of them off-putting and difficult to read. But then, that's the point, isn't it.

P.D. James is great because she's always dealing with some major philosophical issue, and in this book, she was dealing with our responses to the grotesque. She asks us to consider the limits of the physical body, and the value that we place on wellness. At what point, she allows Dalgleish to ask, does one's physical ailments become too much to bear. When does one throw in the towel? As readers, turned off by these characters--some evil and hateful, even with their broken bodies--we must question how the body impacts our ability to hear and value another, how it subtly impacts our estimation of their worth.

Like all James, well worth the read: thought-provoking and challenging, regardless of whether or not we ultimately love it.

The best I've read by James yet. Not sure if James or Inspector Dalgliesh are growing on me. Both are acquired tastes I'm convinced of that. The fact that James is a subtle writer and Adam is a not very charming sleuth don't really explain anything...or do they? In this story, we catch a few more glimpses into the mysterious character of our detective. I find myself liking Adam in spite of himself, or is it because I feel sorry for him? He's brilliant, cold, aloof, calculating and a born investigator, but a rather sorry human being. He solves his crimes but he doesn't always come out on top like Poirot or other serial detectives, which makes him and the stories more interesting.

The good part: P. D. James writes great detective stories, thick with dread and tension. This story unspools indirectly but effectively, and a couple times I found myself turning pages wide-eyed, furiously trying to get through a highly fraught episode. We stay mainly in Dalgliesh’s mind, except when James wants to step in with a phrase like “The next day, on the last day of her life...”.

The bad part: like Graham Greene and, to a certain extent, Ruth Rendell (and a boatload of British TV detectives), James seemingly equates realism with the awkward, unpleasant, gauche and snide. Everything is slightly grimy and smells unpleasant. Can no piece of scenery be left alone? Churches are “uninteresting Victorian reconstructions.” A grave is “an oblong mound crudely patched with squares of weedy turf.” Next to the churchyard is a “row of rather dull cottages.” All of these descriptions are from the same paragraph, and nearly every other paragraph reduces people and places and things to tawdriness. Yes, this is Dalgliesh’s mood in the book—until the very end he’s in a bad place. But it’s also dauntingly negative to read: occasionally the sun shines, even in the throes of depression, doesn’t it? When Dalgliesh isn’t the point of view, most others look at a world full of similar squalor. I know life isn’t all pip-pip and stiff upper lip, but it isn’t all a black tower of shite either.

This is my own personal taste, of course. Maybe some of the other James novels are sunnier. I also hope Dalgliesh doesn’t use the insult “like a hysterical queer” in any of the others.

A good mystery. I had a little bit of trouble keeping all the characters straight.

I'm noticing a trend with sinister nurses and unlikable invalids. I still very much enjoyed the mystery.