P.d. James

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BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR


Title: Original Sin: Description:
The literary world is shaken when a murder takes place at the Peverell Press, a long-established publishing house located in a dramatic mock-Venetian palace on the Thames. The victim is Gerard Etienne, the brilliant new managing director whose ruthless ambition had made him many enemies: discarded mistress, a rejected and humiliated author and rebellious colleagues. Commander Adam Dalgliesh and his team are confronted with a puzzle of extraordinary complexity and a killer who is prepared to strike again.

Title: A Mind To Murder: Description:
ex library paperback not in great nick but still readable and very cheap

Title: Unnatural Causes: Description:
I have others by this author

Title: Death Of An Expert Witness: Description:
i have others by this author

Title: Death Of An Expert Witness: Description:
Another famous Adam Dagleish mystery--this one featuring death in a forensic laboratory in East Anglia

Title: Shroud For A Nightingale: Description:
A murder-mystery by the author of "Children of Men", "Death of an Expert Witness" and "Skull Beneath the Skin".

Title: Death In Holy Orders: Description:
Despite challenges from Ruth Rendell and (more recently) Minette Walters, PD James' position as Britain's Queen of Crime remains largely unassailed. Although a certain reaction has set in to her reputation (and there are those who claim her poetry-loving copper Dalgleish doesn't correspond to any of his counterparts in the real world), her detractors can scarcely deny her astonishing literary gifts. More than any other writer, she has elevated the detective story into the realms of literature, with the psychology of the characters treated in the most complex and authoritative fashion. Her plots, too, are full of intriguing detail and studded with brilliantly observed character studies. Who cares if Dalgleish belongs more in the pages of a book than poking around a graffiti-scrawled council estate? As a policeman, he is considerably more plausible than Doyle's Holmes, and that's never stopped us loving the Baker Street sleuth. Death in Holy Orders represents something of a challenge from James to her critics, taking on all the contentious elements and rigorously re-invigorating them. She had admitted that she was finding it increasingly difficult to find new plots for Dalgleish, and the locale here (a theological college on a lonely stretch of the East Anglian coast) turns out to be an inspired choice: we're presented with the enclosed setting so beloved of golden age detective writers, and James is able to incorporate her theological interests seamlessly into the plot--but never in any doctrinaire way; the non-believer is never uncomfortable. The body of a student at the college is found on the shore, suffocated by a fall of sand. Dalgleish is called upon to re-examine the verdict of accidental death (which the student's father would not accept). Having visited the College of St Anselm in his boyhood, he finds the investigation has a strong nostalgic aspect for him. But that is soon overtaken by the realisation that he has encountered the most horrific case of his career, and another visitor to the College dies a horrible death. As an exploration of evil--and as a piece of highly distinctive crime writing--this is James at her non-pareil best. Dalgleish, too, is rendered with new dimensions of psychological complexity. --Barry Forshaw

Title: The Murder Room: Description:
Commander Adam Dalgliesh is already acquainted with the Dupayne Museum in Hampstead, and with its sinister murder room celebrating notorious crimes committed in the interwar years, when he is called to investigate the killing of one of the trustees. He soon discovers that the victim was seeking to close the museum against the wishes of both staff and fellow trustees. Everyone, it seems has something to gain from the crime. When it becomes clear that the killer is prepared to kill again, inspired by the real-life crimes from the murder room, Dalgliesh knows that to solve this case he has to get into the mind of a ruthless killer.

Title: The Lighthouse: Description:
While PD James’ The Lighthouse moves satisfyingly in territory that the author has made very much her own -- the classic English crime mystery -- there are several new elements added, proving that Baroness James is not content to rest on her laurels. While Commander Adam Dalgliesh is once again at work, solving a case of murder in a secluded setting, cut off from the rest of the world (James has long been pleased to introduce variations into the beloved crime situations that exercised her predecessors), and while the structure of the novel presents the reader with the usual strongly drawn cast of suspects and victims, there is a new frankness here, with the treatment of sexuality more upfront than would ever have been countenanced in the era of Dorothy Sayers and co. But long-time readers of this most accomplished of British novelists will also be pleased to learn that the things we turn to James for are all satisfyingly in place. A secluded island off the Cornish coast, renowned for its history of bloody piracy, has become a retreat for under-pressure men and women in the upper echelons of society. But when one of their number is murdered in a grotesque fashion (his body found on the eponymous lighthouse), Adam Dalgliesh is requested to solve the case, but with maximum discretion. However, it is not a good time for Dalgliesh and his team: he himself is going through a fraught period with the woman in his life, Emma Lavenham, while DI Kate Miskin is struggling with similar upheavals in her life. And their Anglo-Indian associate, Francis Benton-Smith, has his own problems in regard to working with Kate. Nevertheless, the team make progress on the island, until a second savage murder threatens to bring chaos. It's easy to underestimate James’ achievement with Dalgliesh and co. So often, long-time series characters betray signs of their authors’ growing disinterest, but James has always managed to find new nuances to ensure that we never tire of her cultivated copper. And there's pleasure here in seeing familiar themes orchestrated with such finesse: the difficult, combative figure who alienates a host of people (and thereby set themselves up as a candidate for murder) and, best of all, the cloistered setting -- often a cliché of the genre -- but here, treated with freshness and imagination. --Barry Forshaw

Title: Death In Holy Orders: Description:
When the body of a theology student is found on a desolate stretch of East Anglian coast, his wealthy father demands that Scotland Yard should re-examine the verdict of accidental death. Commander Adam Dalgleish agrees to pay a visit to the young man's theological college, St. Anselm's, a place he knew as a boy, expecting no more than a nostalgic return to old haunts and a straightforward examination of the evidence. Instead he finds himself embroiled in intrigue, conflict and dangerous secrets as the college is torn apart by a sacrilegious and horrifying murder.

Title: A Taste For Death: Description:
Two bodies, their throats cut with brutal precision, lie in a waste of blood in the dingy vestry of St. Matthew's Church, Paddington. One is an alcoholic tramp: the other, Sir Paul Berowne, is a baronet and a recently resigned Minister of the Crown. In an attempt to discover the truth Dalgliesh, with his new woman assistant, arrives to begin one of the most convoluted and difficult investigations of his career, one that will expose the darker recesses of the Berowne family history, which have long lain hidden beneath a veneer of prosperous gentility.

Title: Innocent Blood: Description:
At eighteen, Philippa Palfrey, the confident adopted daughter of a celebrated academic, exercises her right to find the names of her real parents. What she uncovers is a terrible secret that will for ever change her life.

Title: A Mind To Murder: Description:
A hideous scream pierces the calm of the evening psychotherapy session. The body of a woman lies sprawled in the basement of the Steen Clinic, a chisel thrust through her heart. Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh, relaxing at a literary party close by, hurries over to investigate the murder.

Title: The Children Of Men: Description:
The year is 2021. No child has been born for twenty-five years. The human race faces extinction. Under the despotic rule of Xan Lyppiatt, the Warden of England, the old are despairing and the young cruel. Theo Faren, a cousin of the Warden, lives a solitary life in this ominous atmosphere. That is, until a chance encounter with a young woman leads him into contact with a group of dissenters. Suddenly, his life is changed irrevocably as he faces agonising choices which could affect the future of mankind.

Title: The Lighthouse: Description:
Combe Island off the Cornish coast has a bloodstained history of piracy and cruelty but now, privately owned, it offers respite to over-stressed men and women in positions of high authority who require privacy and guaranteed security. But the peace of Combe is vilated when one of the distinguished visitors is bizarrely murdered. Adam Dalgliesh is called in to solve the mystery quickly and discreetly, but at a difficult time for him and his depleted team, who all have worries of their own. Hardly have the team began to unravel the mystery when there is a second brutal killing and the investigation is jeopardized when Dalgliesh is faced with a potentially fatal danger...This powerful novel combines all the elements P D James fans have come to expect: a vivid evocation of place, sensitive characterisation and a superbly structured plot.

Title: Original Sin: Description:
The literary world is shaken when a murder takes place at the Peverell Press, a long-established publishing house located in a dramatic mock-Venetian palace on the Thames. The victim is Gerard Etienne, the brilliant new managing director whose ruthless ambition had made him many enemies: discarded mistress, a rejected and humiliated author and rebellious colleagues. Commander Adam Dalgliesh and his team are confronted with a puzzle of extraordinary complexity and a killer who is prepared to strike again.

Title: Innocent Blood: Description:
When Philippa who has been adopted as a child, decides to exercise her legal rights and discover her true identity, she knows she's taking a risk. The one thing she's not prepared for is the news that her real parents have been sentenced to life imprisonment. Half curious, half fearful, Philippa invites her mother to share her flat in London after her long solitary years. But Philippa rapidly finds her hopes turn to nightmares as the horror of the past unfolds with a terrible, cruel vengence ...

Title: The Black Tower: Description:
Adam Dalgliesh, newly promoted to the rank of commander, is facing a crisis in his career. Dissatisfied with his work, restless and vulnerable, he thinks of resigning from the force. However an invitation to visit an old family friend in Dorset appeals to Dalgliesh. But when he arrives in Toynton Grange, a private home for the disabled, he discovers that his host has died suddenly. Other more mysterious deaths follow, and Dagliesh fins that the 'problem' is an enclosed world seething with malice, intrigue, hatred and murder.

Title: Cover Her Face: Description:
St Cedd's Church fete had been held in the grounds of Martingale manor house for generations. As if organizing stalls, as well as presiding over luncheon, the bishop and the tea tent, were not enough for Mrs Maxie on that mellow July afternoon, she also had to contend with the news of her son's sudden engagement to her new parlour maid, the sly single mother, Sally Jupp. On the following morning Martingale and the whole village are shocked by the discovery of Sally Jupp's body. Investigating the violent death at the manor house, Detective Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh is embroiled in the complicated passions beneath the calm surface of English village life.

Title: The Skull Beneath The Skin: Description:
Hired to watch over a death threatened actress, the candid young private detective Cordelia Grey is caught up in an intricate play within a play chilled and shadowed by the dead hand of the past. Each of the guests at the country house party has a motive and a cue for murder - and one of them will kill.

Title: An Unsuitable Job For A Woman: Description:
Cordelia Grey saw no reason why her job as a private detective was an unsuitable job for a woman. Until she was employed to discover why a renowned scientist's son had committed suicide. And she discovered his family's insidious secrets.

Title: A Certain Justice: Description:
An Adam Dalgliesh novel. When Venetia Aldridge QC defends young Gary Ashe, accused of the brutal murder of his aunt, this is just one more opportunity for her to triumph in a distinguished career as a criminal lawyer. Then Miss Aldridge is found dead at her desk, and Dalgliesh is called in.

Title: Original Sin: Description:
An Adam Dalgliesh novel, set against the backdrop of the publishing world. Commander Dalgliesh and his team are confronted with a puzzle of extraordinary ingenuity and complexity, and a murderer who is prepared to kill again.

Title: Devices And Desires: Description:
Commander Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard is taking a brief respite from publicity on the Norfolk coast, in a converted windmill left him by his aunt. But he cannot easily escape murder - a psychopathic strangler is at large in Norfolk.

Title: The Murder Room: Description:
A small, private museum on the edge of Hampstead Heath has been inherited by three siblings, all of whom are required by the family trust to sign any new lease. Without the new lease the museum will have to close. One brother, Neville Dupayne, is adamant he won't sign. And then the housekeeper, Mrs Tally Clutton, discovers Neville's body in his still blazing car... About the Author P. D. James was born in Oxford in 1920 and educated at Cambridge High School for Girls. From 1949 to 1968 she worked in the National Health Service and subsequently in the Home Office, first in the Police Department and later in the Criminal Policy Department. All that experience has been used in her novels. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Royal Society of the Arts and has served as a Governor of the BBC, a member of the Arts Council, where she was Chairman of its Literary Advisory Panel, on the Board of the British Council and as a magistrate in Middlesex and London. She has won awards for crime writing in Britain, America, Italy and Scandinavia, including the Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award. She has received honorary degrees from seven British universities, was awarded an OBE in 1983 and was created a life peer in 1991. In 1997 she was elected President of the Society of Authors.

Title: A Taste For Death: Description:
Two bodies, their throats cut, lie in the vestry of St Matthew's Church, Paddington. One is an alcoholic tramp; the other, Sir Paul Berowne, is a baronet and a recently resigned Minister of the Crown. Adam Dalgliesh, arrives to begin his investigation, one that will expose the darker recesses of the Berowne family history.

Title: Death Of An Expert Witness: Description:
When a young girl is found strangled in a field in the Fens, it looks like a routine job for the staff of the East Anglian Forensic Laboratory. But then the senior bioligist is found dead in his lab and murder comes closer to home. And Commander Adam Dalgleish faces the most baffling inquiry of his career.

Title: Black Tower: Description:
Hoping for a little investigation to enliven his convalescence, Commander Adam Dalgleish accepts an invitation from an old friend to visit Dorset and solve a problem. But when he arrives at Toynton Grange, a private house for the disabled, he discovers that his host has died suddenly. Other more mysterious deaths follow and Dalgleish finds that the problem is an enclosed world seething with malice, intrigue, hatred and murder.

Title: Devices And Desires: Description:
Commander Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard has just published a new book of poems, and is resting in Norfolk. But a psychopathic strangler of young women is on the loose. The author's previous books include "A Taste for Death" which was serialised on television.