Review - The Murder Room

The Murder Room by P. D. James
Year: 2003
Genre: Crime fiction, police procedural
My Rating: 3.75/5
My Source: Library


The Dupaynes, two brothers and a sister run an esoteric London museum dedicated to the interwar years. All is well until one of the brothers, Dr. Neville Dupayne, decides not to support the renewal of the lease on the museum, a move that will lead to its closing, and have a very negative impact on several people involved with it. Thus, when Dr. Dupayne is soon found murdered in a horrifying manner, there is more than one person with a motive for the murder. Adam Dalgliesh, assisted by Inspectors Kate Miskin and Piers Tarrant sets out to find the elusive culprit, and soon finds himself not only dealing with stakeholders in the museum, but also other who emerge from Dr. Dupayne's shadowy private life.

P. D. James is the master of character development, and succeeds in creating complex and three dimensional characters in this book. As with any good whodunit, there is a closed list of suspects, and clues interspersed throughout the book. James' narrative is, as usual, very refined and makes for a compelling read.

This book also features the introduction of a new sergeant, Francis Benton- Smith, a very handsome and ambitious young man of English and East Indian parentage. There is some tension in his relationships with Inspectors Miskin and Tarrant, and I look forward to the further development of these relationships in the next book. There are also important developments in Dalgliesh's personal life, though P. D. James takes great care to see that her detective's personal life never, at any point, overshadows the plot of the novel - commendable indeed.

This book is a page turner, and Adam Dalgliesh solves the mystery with a combination of brilliant detecting and hard work. However, while this book is a solid read, it is not P.D. James' best, and is certainly not in the class of "A Taste for Death" my favorite of all of James' work. While James' characters are usually very multifaceted, this book has several characters whom I found hard to sympathize with, and others who were rather annoying. All said, I would recommend this to anyone who is familiar with James and Dalgliesh, but not to anyone who wishes to try reading James for the first time.

This book counts toward the Typically British Book Challenge hosted by BookChickCity.

This review is now part of Cym Lowell's Book Review Party Wednesday for April 21

Character Connection 1

This is an interesting meme from the Introverted Reader, where the goal is to spotlight one character of interest every week.

I have just finished reading "The Murder Room" by P.D. James, and will feature Adam Dalgliesh, her greatest creation, as my character for the week.

Adam Dalgliesh is a detective created by P. D. James and appears in fourteen of James' novels. Dalgliesh is a Commander in New Scotland Yard, very competent, and respected by his superiors and subordinates alike. He is extremely intelligent and astute and exercises his sharp intellect to solve many complex cases that baffle others around him.

He is tall, dark, and quite attractive. He is also an intensely private person who believes in clearly separating his personal and professional life. His colleagues know very little about him as a person although his intellect is never in doubt. He has authored at least one volume of poetry,"A Case to Answer and Other Poems", and is well-respected in the literary world too. He however has no desire to be a professional poet - solving crimes helps him serve society, preserves his privacy, and even inspires his poetry.

Dalgliesh has the gift of making everyone around him feel very comfortable and wanting to confide in him, a very useful gift to possess in his profession. He is conscious of this fact and at one point even ponders

"Hasn't t always been like this? People tell me things. I don't need to probe or question, they tell. It had begun when he was a young detective sergeant and then it had surprised and intrigued him, feeding his poetry, bringing the half-shameful realization that for a detective it would be a useful gift. The pity was there. He has known from childhood the heartbreak of life and that, too had fed the poetry. He thought, I have taken people's confidences and used them to fasten gyves round their wrist"(The Murder Room, 2003).

He is a widower through most of the series, his wife having died in childbirth. He has since had a fear of getting too close to women and of being in a committed relationship, although the last few books see him falling in love ( I won't give away too much here). He is, however, well aware of his shortcomings, and it is this self-awareness that makes him very endearing to me. Honestly, I can see myself falling in love with Adam Dalgliesh!

P. D. James, in my opinion, is the best at character development in the crime fiction world, and Adam Dalgliesh is her best creation. If her books are read in order, one can trace the evolution of Dalgliesh's character which is very well done indeed. Baroness James will turn 90 in August, here's to her - thanks for giving us Adam Dalgliesh and may he live long and prosper!