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The Murder Room

By P. D. James

(28)

| Paperback | 9780141015538

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Book Description

Commander Adam Dalgliesh, P. D. James’s formidable and fascinating detective, returns to find himself enmeshed in a terrifying story of passion and mystery -- and in love.

The Dupayne, a small private museum in London devoted to the interwar years 1919 -- 1939, is in turmoil. As Continue

Commander Adam Dalgliesh, P. D. James’s formidable and fascinating detective, returns to find himself enmeshed in a terrifying story of passion and mystery -- and in love.

The Dupayne, a small private museum in London devoted to the interwar years 1919 -- 1939, is in turmoil. As its trustees argue over whether it should be closed, one of them is brutally and mysteriously murdered. Yet even as Commander Dalgliesh and his team proceed with their investigation, a second corpse is discovered. Someone in the Dupayne is prepared to kill and kill again. Still more sinister, the murders appear to echo the notorious crimes of the past featured in one of the museum’s galleries: the Murder Room.

The case is fraught with danger and complications from the outset, but for Dalgliesh the complications are unexpectedly profound. His new relationship with Emma Lavenham -- introduced in the last Dalgliesh novel, Death in Holy Orders -- is at a critical stage. Now, as he moves closer and closer to a solution to the puzzle, he finds himself driven further and further from commitment to the woman he loves.

The Murder Room is a powerful work of mystery and psychological intricacy from a master of the modern novel.

“You can’t possibly know him.”

“I can know enough,” Emma said. “I can’t know everything, no one can. Loving him doesn’t give me the right to walk in and out of his mind as if it were my room at college. He’s the most private person I’ve ever met. But I know the things about him that matter.”

But did she? Emma asked herself. Adam Dalgleish was intimate with those dark crevices of the human mind where horrors lurked which she couldn’t begin to comprehend. Not even that appalling scene in the church at St. Anselm’s had shown her the worst that human beings could do to each other. She knew about those horrors from literature; he explored them daily in his work. Sometimes, waking from sleep in the early hours, the vision she had of him was of the dark face masked, the hands smooth and impersonal in the sleek latex gloves. What hadn’t those hands touched? She rehearsed the questions she wondered if she would ever be able to ask. Why do you do it? Is it necessary to your poetry? Why did you choose this job? Or did it choose you?
-- from The Murder Room


From the Hardcover edition.

Critics

  • The Best Reviews: P. D. James, The Murder Room

    "Another good mystery by this fine author" The Dupayne Museum in Hampstead Heath, England provides a deep look at the country's culture during the two decades that separated the two world wars. However, the lease on the property is almost expired and ... (read full critics)

    thebestreviews published on Fri, 17 Sep 2010

1 Review

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  • 1 person find this helpful

    Three murders in a Museum

    P D James is a charming writer, and this time again she ammaliates the reader, even if only for her considerations about human nature and about British classes, but this time i found that the final chapters do not live up to the expectations raised in the reader.

    She builds tremendous suspen ... (continue)

    P D James is a charming writer, and this time again she ammaliates the reader, even if only for her considerations about human nature and about British classes, but this time i found that the final chapters do not live up to the expectations raised in the reader.

    She builds tremendous suspence as she is always able to, but to use a metaphor, it is as if she were a very accurate dressmaker, that has sewn little precise stitches to make a beauiful dress, and all of a sudden realizes that she has to deliver it and finishes it with a stapler.

    Besides, her charachters become a bit too sombre, and the portraits of both Dalgliesh and Kate are somewhat repetitive at least for the reader who have known them from the beginning of their careers.

    On top of this, I did not like the underplot of Dalgliesh falling in love with an academic from Cambridge, while poor Kate suffers the pains of unrequited love for him. It is a little bit too contrived in my opinion.

    These considerations aside, I still relished very much the case of the copycat murders, the setting, the scholarly quotations skillfully scattered here and there .

    Is this helpful?

    VeneziAnna said on Feb 9, 2009 | Add your feedback

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