Review: THE MISTLETOE MURDER and Other Stories

• printed in Australia by Griffin Press
• published 2016 by Faber & Faber
• ISBN 978-0-571-33134-5
• 136 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (Amazon)

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.

My Take

There are 4 stories in the collection published by P.D. James' Estate with a foreword by Val McDermid and a preface by P.D. James.

The Mistletoe Murder, first published in 1995
A Very Commonplace Murder, first published in 1969
The Boxdale Inheritance, first published 1979
The Twelve Clues of Christmas, first published 1996

The connecting theme is Christmas and "family" murders. By far the best of the lot is The Mistletoe Murder which is also the longest, and most fleshed out. They are quick reads however, so if you feel like a seasonal dabble, these may satisfy your urge. The last two are Dalgliesh stories, when he is still a young man.

My rating: 4.3

Review: DEATH OF AN EXPERT WITNESS, P.D. James - audio

• published by Chivers Audio books, available from Audible.com
• unabridged, 9 hrs and 52 mins, 8 CDs
• first published in 1977
• #6 in the Inspector Dalgliesh series
• Narrated by Michael Jayston
• source: my local library

Synopsis

When a young girl is found strangled in a field, it looks like a routine job for the staff of the East Anglian Forensic Laboratory. But then the senior biologist is found dead in his lab and murder comes closer to home. And Commander Adam Dalgliesh faces the most baffling inquiry of his career.

Death of an Expert Witness led Newsweek to crown P. D. James "the new queen of crime."

My take

DEATH OF AN EXPERT WITNESS is the perfect illustration of what took P.D. James to the top of British crime fiction. Characters are clearly defined, plotting is convoluted but tight, motives are hidden, and red herrings abound.

There are in fact two main plot strands: the dead girl in the "clunge pit", and the murder at the forensic lab. What binds them together is that Dalgliesh and his team are investigating both, and that while the forensic lab is doing the SIO at the first, their senior biologist is killed in his lab.

This novel shares characteristics with many others in the series: Dalgliesh makes a relatively late appearance, and the perpetrator is almost the last one standing, and his/her identity comes as a surprise. Michael Jayston does an excellent job of the narration too.

My rating: 4.6

Other P.D. James reviews on MiP
THE PRIVATE PATIENT
4.5, TALKING ABOUT DETECTIVE FICTION
4.7, THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN

Review: THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN, P.D. James - audio

PUBLISHER: BBC WW
LENGTH: 13 hrs and 1 min
AUDIBLE RELEASE DATE: 08-12-05
Narrated by Jane Asher
Available from Audible.com

Published in 1982. James' second Cordelia Gray novel.

Publisher's Summary:
An intriguing assignment, Cordelia Gray thought, and not a particularly arduous one. The poison pen messages to Clarissa Lyle were to be stopped, or at least deflected, until after the performance of The Duchess of Malfi at Ambrose Gorringe's private theatre on Courcy Island. It soon becomes apparent, however, that Clarissa Lyle's enemy is on the island with her, and Cordelia finds herself trapped in an atmosphere of fear and violence, a violence that is to culminate in brutal murder.

The thing that struck me as I listened to THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN was the intricate detail both in the description of the characters and the setting, that creates vivid mind pictures.

The setting of a murder mystery that takes place on an island, with a very limited cast of characters, is one that has fascinated most of our great crime fiction authors. It is a setting that P.D. James will return to again in a more recent novel, THE LIGHTHOUSE.

Cordelia Gray is an interesting detective, who doesn't really seem very well equipped, rather inexperienced, to protect Clarissa Lyle. Cordelia's main experience to date has been with domestic issues like lost cats, and that is how Clarissa comes to know of her. Neither Clarissa or her husband Sir George seem to believe there is any real threat to Clarissa's life. Cordelia is to go to Courcy Island for the weekend as a companion/secretary to Clarissa.

There's plenty of mystery in this novel. Many people have reason to hate Clarissa Lyle: from her dresser who has been with her all of her life; the owner of island Ambrose Gorringe over whom Clarissa seems to have some hold; her cousin Roma who is desperate for financial help; Ivo, a mortally sick journalist who was once a lover; and her foster son Simon who is desperate to go on to university. In the long run it will come down to Cordelia's word against another's.

Another aspect of THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN that fascinated me was the clever move of the narrative from one point of view to another. Most of the story comes from Cordelia's point of view but on occasion we move into another character's mind. It is very cleverly done.

The two Cordelia Gray novels are sandwiched among the Adam Dalgliesh series (1962-2008). Dalgliesh does not appear in THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN, although Cordelia refers to him a couple of times, once by name and once as "the Commander". Unknown to her, Dalgliesh vouches for Cordelia to the detectives investigating the case.

My rating: 4.7

The first Cordelia Gray novel was AN UNSUITABLE JOB FOR A WOMAN, and was published 10 years prior to THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN. There were no more in the series.

Publisher's blurb:
Handsome Cambridge dropout Mark Callender died hanging by the neck with a faint trace of lipstick on his mouth. When the official verdict is suicide, his wealthy father hires fledgling private investigator Cordelia Gray to find out what led him to self-destruction. What she discovers instead is a twisting trail of secrets and sins, and the strong scent of murder. An Unsuitable Job for a Woman introduces P. D. James's courageous but vulnerable young detective, Cordelia Gray, in a "top-rated puzzle of peril that holds you all the way".

Review: TALKING ABOUT DETECTIVE FICTION, P.D. James - audio

UNABRIDGED
Read by Diana Bishop
BBC Audio Books 2010
Text P.D. James 2009
ISBN 978-1-4084-6490-8
Playing Time 4 hrs 20 mins

Publishers Blurb
To judge by the worldwide success of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie's Poirot, an appetite for murder, mystery and mayhem is universal. Talking about the craft of detective writing and sharing her personal thoughts and observations, P. D. James examines the challenges, achievements, and potential of a genre which has fascinated her for nearly 50 years. From the tenant of 221b Baker Street to the Village Priest from Cubhole in Essex, from the Golden Age of detective writing between the wars to the achievements of the present and a glimpse at the future, P. D. James explores the metamorphosis of a genre which has gripped and entertained the popular imagination like no other type of novel.

What this book illustrated for me more than anything else is what an encyclopaedic knowledge P.D. James has of the history of detective fiction. She is particularly strong on its beginnings and on the writers of the Golden Age, particularly the "big three" of Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham and Agatha Christie. Her love of, and study of the genre, comes through very clearly. I felt that when it comes to her contemporaries, and younger writers, then her knowledge is not quite as deep, although she has quite clearly read very widely. As she herself points out, she is writing about detective fiction, not the whole gamut of crime fiction.

But while she mentioned in passing the "new" crop of writers we are reading in translation like Henning Mankell, and other unique contributors like Alexander McCall Smith, and paid tribute to her contemporary Ruth Rendell, she omitted a number of 21st century female writers like Ann Cleeves, Pauline Rowson, and Aline Templeton. Australian creators of detectives simply don't appear in her scan, although New Zealander Ngiao Marsh does, albeit as somewhat of a disappointment, someone who didn't fulfil her potential.

By the time I got to disc 4, I was feeling a bit as if I was attending a lecture, as well as that James is more comfortable in talking about the distant history of the genre, and hasn't got a lot to say about the 2000s onwards.

Nevertheless, if you are interested in learning quite a lot about the history of the genre, this narration by Diana Bishop is a good one to pick. If you are a writer of detective fiction, then there is something in this book for you too, particularly when she talks about genre rules that earlier writers have tried to set in stone.

My rating 4.5

See interview with P.D. James

Crime Fiction Alphabet: J is for James, P.D. that is

P.D. James is one of those writers who immediately spring to mind with the letter J.

I read THE LIGHTHOUSE in the days before I had a blog and so all I have is this sort of mini-review from my database. But I do know that it was among the top books I read in 2005, with a rating of 5.

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 violated when one of the distinguished visitors is bizarrely murdered.

Commander Adam Dalgliesh is called in to solve the mystery quickly and discreetly, but at a difficult time for him and his depleted team. Dalgliesh is uncertain about his future with Emma Lavenham, the woman he loves; Detective Inspector Kate Miskin has her own emotional problems; and the ambitious Sergeant Francis Benton-Smith is worried about working under Kate. Hardly has the team begun to unravel the complicated motives of the suspects than there is a second brutal killing, and the whole investigation is jeopardized when Dalgliesh is faced with a danger more insidious and as potentially fatal as murder.

THE LIGHTHOUSE is a variant of the closed-room mystery. I kept thinking of it when I read Stieg Larsson's THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. Agatha Christie's AND THEN THERE WERE NONE has a similar setting as has MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. Suspects are limited by the fact that access to the island is controlled not only by the availability of transport but also the weather. The copy of THE LIGHTHOUSE that I read was map-less and I clearly remember sketching rough maps to help me understand where the island's inhabitants were living in relation to each other.

You might like also to read my review of James's THE PRIVATE PATIENT.

Other contributions to Crime Fiction Alphabet for the letter J can be found here.