The Lighthouse - P.D. James

...his first murder case, by the absoluteness of death. Once the body was cold and rigor mortis had started its inevitable and predictable progress, it was almost impossible to believe that this stiffening encumbrance of flesh, bone and muscle had ever been alive. No animal was ever as dead as was a man…" It has been several years since the enigmatic poet and senior Scotland Yard detective Adam Dalgliesh last intrigued us with his crime-solving abilities ...
...on a lonely island off the coast of Cornwall. The character created by crime writer P.D. James once again applies his mind to solving another seemingly insoluble murder and for fans of P.D. James and Adam Dalgliesh it has sometimes seemed that this book has been a long time coming: P.D. James has developed some notoriety for the length of time she leaves between the publication of her novels and this one has been eagerly anticipated by fans of the ...

cladach29 24.10.2006 · Read full review
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Review of The Lighthouse - P.D. James

...long, it's just that as the series has gone on, I've come to dislike the hero, Commander Dagleish more and more and this tends to colour my opinion of the books. Anyway, finally I read it, and as expected, thoroughly enjoyed it, despite Dagleish's appearance. P D James has become famous for her traditional 'closed door' murders, where the murder takes place in a restricted area to which a certain number of people only have access. This book is no ...
...for many of those in the public eye. A well-known writer and his entourage, the head of a laboratory that does tests on animals. and a senior diplomat are three of the main guests on the island at the time. Most of the other people on the island are either administrative people or servants. That is, until the writer is found murdered. A potential visit by a high profile politician rings warning bells in Whitehall; hence Dagleish and his team, Kate ...

sunmeilan 08.12.2006 · Read full review
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Review of The Lighthouse - P.D. James

Combe Island, off the Cornish coast is a privately-owned retreat offering respite to people in stressful jobs. They are guaranteed privacy and complete security. Some residents are pleasanter than others and when one dies in suspicious circumstances Commander Adam Dalgliesh is called in to investigate. It's just over a year since I read the last P D James novel, The Murder Room, and I hoped that there would not be a sequel. I felt that Baroness ...
...good crime fiction. Whilst The Lighthouse isn't up to the standard of her best work - for me that was Devices and Desires - I think that her latest novel is a considerable improvement on either The Murder Room or its immediate predecessor, Death in Holy Orders. The first Dalgliesh novel was written in 1962 and our hero was already a Chief Inspector. Since then he's been enormously successful and appears to have solved every crime he's encountered. ...

SueMagee 06.01.2006 · Read full review
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Review of The Lighthouse - P.D. James

...alive anyway. Similarly, I love the middle classes, quite literally, since I've married a few in my time. However in this novel P.D. James' slip is showing, and that slip is heavily embroidered with our much loved quasi-intellectual, Aga-hugging, green welly brigade. We are, of course, talking about a murder, which is set on a fictional island some way off the coast of Cornwall. The general situation of the island seems to be loosely based on that ...
...male, one independently minded woman. The island is a kind of retreat for stressed out professionals and artists, who are waited on by a handful of quaint Cornish folk and administered by another handful of fatally flawed clerics and medical types. Everything is as it should be so far then and everyone has a motive. The suicide of a famous but obnoxious writer is considered suspicious and our Adam has to unravel the truth, in doing so he pulls the ...

bigush 14.12.2006 · Read full review
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Review of The Lighthouse - P.D. James

I enjoyed the book ,but like all P. D jameses books I feel it would benifit a second read . I find the build up to the final chapters spell bindingThe charactors are written in some detail perhaps to much detail.This I feel is where the author tells us that a second reading would show us the more detailed composition of his charactors and story. The book takes us on a journey through beatiful country side Building on charactors along the way and ...

pager 27.12.2006 · Read full review
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Review of The Lighthouse - P.D. James