Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh hatte sich auf ruhige Ferien im Cottage seiner Tante an der einsamen Küste von Suffolk gefreut. Lange, windumtoste Spaziergänge, Tee vor knisterndem Kaminfeuer, heißer Buttertoast - das war seine Vorstellung von einer wohlverdienten Pause. Doch alle Hoffnung auf Ruhe wird schnell durch einen Mord erschüttert. Die verstümmelte Leiche eines ortsansässigen Krimi-Autors wird in einem kleinen Boot an der Küste angetrieben - und schon ist Adam Dalgliesh in eine weitere, besonders makabre Ermittlung verwickelt ...
Ein durchdringender Schrei stört die abendliche Ruhe. Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh verlässt überstürzt sein Literaten-Treffen, um in die nahegelegene psychiatrische Klinik zu eilen - wo er eine Frauenleiche mit einem Meißel im Herzen entdecken muss. Hinter der unauffälligen Fassade stellt sich die vornehme Nervenklinik bald als Intrigennest heraus. Und der erfolgsverwöhnte Dalgliesh beginnt an sich zu zweifeln, als sich der Mörder als intellektuell ebenbürtig - und mehr als bereit zu weiteren Taten - erweist.
Auf Martingale Manor, dem Herrenhaus der Maxies, wird das traditionelle Sommerfest gefeiert. Als wäre dies nicht genug Aufregung, muss sich Mrs. Maxie an diesem milden Julitag auch noch mit der Nachricht herumschlagen, dass sich ihr Sohn mit dem neuen Hausmädchen verlobt hat, der ledigen Mutter Sally Jupp. Hinter ihrer Maske aus Tüchtigkeit und Ergebenheit versteckt Sally Gefühle der Verachtung - was den meisten auf Martingale verborgen bleibt. Am nächsten Morgen jedoch wird Sally ermordet aufgefunden. Ein komplizierter Fall für Kommissar Adam Dalgliesh, denn unter der Oberfläche des ländlichen Idylls brodelt es vor Hass und Eifersucht ... Band 1 der Reihe um Commander Adam Dalgliesh.
Four previously uncollected stories from one of the great mystery writers of our time--swift, cunning murder mysteries (two of which feature the young Adam Dalgliesh) that together, to borrow the author's own word, add up to a delightful "entertainment."
The newly appointed Sgt. Dalgliesh is drawn into a case that is "pure Agatha Christie." . . . A "pedantic, respectable, censorious" clerk's secret taste for pornography is only the first reason he finds for not coming forward as a witness to a murder . . . A best-selling crime novelist describes the crime she herself was involved in fifty years earlier . . . Dalgliesh's godfather implores him to reinvestigate a notorious murder that might ease the godfather's mind about an inheritance, but which will reveal a truth that even the supremely upstanding Adam Dalgliesh will keep to himself. Each of these stories is as playful as it is ingeniously plotted, the author's sly humor as evident as her hallmark narrative elegance and shrewd understanding of some of the most complex--not to say the most damning--aspects of human nature. A treat for P. D. James's legions of fans and anyone who enjoys the pleasures of a masterfully wrought whodunit.
From the Hardcover edition.
Adam Dalgliesh takes on a baffling murder in the rarefied world of London book publishing in this masterful mystery from one of our finest novelists.
Commander Adam Dalgliesh and his team are confronted with a puzzle of impenetrable complexity. A murder has taken place in the offices of the Peverell Press, a venerable London publishing house located in a dramatic mock-Venetian palace on the Thames. The victim is Gerard Etienne, the brilliant but ruthless new managing director, who had vowed to restore the firm's fortunes. Etienne was clearly a man with enemies-a discarded mistress, a rejected and humiliated author, and rebellious colleagues, one of who apparently killed herself a short time earlier. Yet Etienne's death, which occurred under bizarre circumstances, is for Dalgliesh only the beginning of the mystery, as he desperately pursues the search for a killer prepared to strike and strike again.
"Complex and compelling.... James is writing in full mastery of her craft."-The New York Times Book Review"One of James's best novels.... James transcends literary classification." -Chicago Sun-Times"The queen of the British murder mystery demonstrates why the crown is hers."-Newsday"One of James's most savory fictions. . . . A marvelous tale."-San Francisco Chronicle "One of her most enjoyable and vigorous novels."-The Plain Dealer
It begins, dramatically enough, with a trial for murder. The distinguished criminal lawyer Venetia Aldridge is defending Garry Ashe on charges of having brutally killed his aunt. For Aldridge the trial is mainly a test of her courtroom skills, one more opportunity to succeed--and she does. But now murder is in the air. The next victim will be Aldridge herself, stabbed to death at her desk in her Chambers in the Middle Temple, a bloodstained wig on her head. Enter Commander Adam Dalgliesh and his team, whose struggle to investigate and understand the shocking events cannot halt the spiral into more horrors, more murders...
A Certain Justice is P.D. James at her strongest. In her first foray into the strange closed world of the Law Courts and the London legal community, she has created a fascinating tale of interwoven passion and terror. As each character leaps into unforgettable life, as each scene draws us forward into new complexities of plot, she proves yet again that no other writer can match her skill in combining the excitement of the classic detective story with the richness of a fine novel. In its subtle portrayal of morality and human behavior, A Certain Justice will stand alongside Devices and Desires and A Taste for Death as one of P.D. James's most important, accomplished and entertaining works.
A rare meeting of literary genius: P. D. James, long among the most admired mystery writers of our time, draws the characters of Jane Austen's beloved novel Pride and Prejudice into a tale of murder and emotional mayhem. It is 1803, six years since Elizabeth and Darcy embarked on their life together at Pemberley, Darcy's magnificent estate.Their peaceful, orderly world seems almost unassailable.Elizabeth has found her footing as the chatelaine of the great house.They have two fine sons, Fitzwilliam and Charles.Elizabeth's sister Jane and her husband, Bingley, live nearby; her father visits often; there is optimistic talk about the prospects of marriage for Darcy's sister Georgiana.And preparations are under way for their much-anticipated annual autumn ball. Then, on the eve of the ball, the patrician idyll is shattered.A coach careens up the drive carrying Lydia, Elizabeth's disgraced sister, who with her husband, the very dubious Wickham, has been banned from Pemberley.She stumbles out of the carriage, hysterical, shrieking that Wickham has been murdered.With shocking suddenness, Pemberley is plunged into a frightening mystery. Inspired by a lifelong passion for Austen, P. D. James masterfully re-creates the world of Pride and Prejudice, electrifying it with the excitement and suspense of a brilliantly crafted crime story, as only she can write it.
To judge by the worldwide success of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Poirot, it is not only the Anglo-Saxons who have an appetite for mystery and mayhem. Talking about the craft of detective writing and sharing her personal thoughts and observations on one of the most popular and enduring forms of literature, P. D. James examines the challenges, achievements, and potential of a genre which has fascinated her for nearly fifty years as a novelist. P. D. James explores the metamorphosis of a genre which has gripped and entertained the popular imagination like no other type of novel. Written by the author widely regarded as the queen of the detective novel, this book is sure to appeal to all aficionados of crime fiction.
“P. D. James is the undisputed grande dame of the modern mystery…She presents an energetic, insightful, and often witty history of the genre.”--Boston Globe
The Children of Men begins in England in 2021, in a world where all human males have become sterile and no child will be born again. The final generation has turned twenty-five, and civilization is giving way to strange faiths and cruelties, mass suicides and despair. Theodore Faron, Oxford historian and cousin to the omnipotent Warden of England, a dictator of great subtlety, has resigned himself to apathy. Then he meets Julian, a bright, attractive woman, who wants Theo to join her circle of unlikely revolutionaries, a move that may shatter his shell of passivity.… And maybe, just maybe, hold the key to survival for the human race.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
P.D. James is 'the greatest living mystery writer.', People
Private detective Cordelia Gray is invited to the sunlit island of Courcy to protect the vainly beautiful actress Clarissa Lisle from veiled threats on her life. Within the rose red walls of a fairy-tale castle, she finds the stage is set for death.
'Richly intricate and literate,' James's second Cordelia Gray mystery 'shows James at the height of her storytelling powers' , San Francisco Chronicle
From the Compact Disc edition.
P.D. James is 'the greatest living mystery writer.', People
Adopted as a child into a privileged family, Philippa Palfrey fantasizes that she is the daughter of an aristocrat and a parlor maid. The terrifying truth about her parents and a long-ago murder is only the first in a series of shocking betrayals. Philippa quickly learns that those who delve into the secrets of the past must be on guard when long-buried horrors begin to stir.
'As a crime novel,' wrote the London Times, Innocent Blood is 'the peak of the art.' 'Flawlessly crafted . . . profoundly, masterfully moving,' Cosmopolitan concurred.
From the Compact Disc edition.
