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Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 10, No. 4 |
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Adam Dalgliesh returns
for one more grim case
By RON MILLER
of TheColumnists.com
Though P.D. James will turn 89 this year and her soulful detective Adam Dalgliesh has reached the high rank of Commander with England's Metropolitan Police and may be considering reitrement soon, I'm happy to report that he still gets himself embroiled in some of the most tantalizing mystery cases in the United Kingdom.
Witness the case he's involved with in "The Private Patient" (Knopf, $25.95), James' 14th novel about him. A respected investigative journalist at the peak of her career finally decides to undergo plastic surgery to remove a hideous facial scar she has borne all her adult life. She chooses one of London's top plastic surgeons to do the operation and has it done at the private clinic he runs in a handsome old English manor in Dorset, a remote location he offers to his most illustrious clients, the ones who prefer absolute privacy.
But the morning after the surgery, journalist Rhoda Gradwyn is found strangled to death in her bed. She is so well-connected in English society that the local police are asked to step aside and Commander Dalgliesh's special crimes unit is sent to take over the case.
Not surprisingly, Baroness James has once again selected an isolated location for the scene of her crimes, peopled by all the suspects, who mostly are found living or working under the same roof. It's the classic cozy classic mystery setting, although P.D. James has an affinity for the grotesque that always makes her "cozy" mysteries a whole lot less cozy than Agatha Christie might have made them.
The more layers Dalgliesh and his two assistants, Detective Inspector Kate Miskin and Sgt. Francis Benton-Smith, peel away from the case, the more complicated it becomes. For instance, one of the suspects working at Cheverell Manor is a convicted murderer already. The heirs to the manor have an enormous inheritance hanging in the balance and Rhoda Gradwyn may have been involved in an attempt to prove the will was a forgery. The journalist also may have been responsible for the suicide of a novelist she accused of plagiarism--and someone very close to that novelist may be residing at the manor house.
In other words, there are scads of suspects and you won't figure this one out until the last few chapters.
Moreover, at the very last moment Dalgliesh has to deal with a tragic crime that affects his own personal life--and has nothing to do with the case he's working on.
Mystery fans should treasure each and every novel P.D. James turns out at this stage of her literary life. She has, from the start, written straightforward old-fashioned mysteries, but with the added depth of modern crime fiction. She is one of the greats who straddles the old-fashioned English tradition and the much more modern contemporary style. She never disappoints.
And as for that wedding ceremony we've been waiting for at least for a decade, we finally get it this time, so at least that last end has been tied up for the Dalgliesh canon.
©2009 by Ron Miller. The book cover reproduction is courtesy of Knopf. This column first posted Jan. 5, 2009.
Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He currently
writes about television mysteries for MYSTERY SCENE magazine.
You can comment on this column online. Please address your message to either "The Editors" or Ron Miller. To send an email, click here and don't forget to mention Ron's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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