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Item Barcode | Collection | Call Number | Status | Item Holds |
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Summary
Summary
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.
Author Notes
P. D. James, pseudonym of Phyllis Dorothy James White, was born on August 3, 1920 in Oxford, England. During World War II, she served as a Red Cross nurse. She worked in administration for 19 years with the National Health Service. After the death of her husband in 1964, she took a Civil Service examination and became an administrator in the forensic science and criminal law divisions of the Department of Home Affairs. She spent 30 years in British Civil Service. She became Baroness James of Holland Park in 1991.
Her first novel, Cover Her Face, was published in 1962. She wrote approximately 20 books during her lifetime including the Adam Dalgliesh Mystery series, the Cordelia Gray Mystery series, and Death Comes to Pemberley. She became a full-time writer in 1979. Three titles in the Adam Dalgliesh Mystery series received the Silver Dagger award--Shroud for a Nightingale, The Black Tower, and A Taste for Death. In 2000, she published her autobiography, Time to Be in Earnest. Her dystopian novel, The Children of Men, was adapted into a movie in 2006. She received the Diamond Dagger award for lifetime achievement. She died on November 27, 2014 at the age of 94.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Two of this quartet of posthumously collected short stories feature James's New Scotland Yard sleuth, Supt. Adam Dalgliesh, narrated crisply and with touches of wry humor by reader Weyman, the voice of the poet-detective in previous audiobooks. In "The Boxdale Inheritance," Dalgliesh investigates an infamous 67-year-old murder case, while "The Twelve Clues of Christmas" presents a younger, newly minted Sergeant Dalgliesh who, on his way to his aunt's Christmas Eve dinner, is interrupted by a frantic man who has just discovered his uncle's apparent suicide. James brightens all four tales with metafictional touches-from unapologetic references to her use of mystery tropes to allusions to Agatha Christie's works. Weyman's narration dryly takes note of these, as does Agutter's in the other two stories. Her reading of "A Very Commonplace Murder," a study of a smarmy, porn-addicted clerk who could alter a murder trial but doesn't, is hard-edged and at times venomous. Her tone softens for the title piece, matching its narrator, an elderly popular crime novelist who recalls a Christmas half a century before when she wound up involved in a vicious murder. Agutter also provides a rather aloof rendition of a brief but informative essay by James on short crime fiction. A Knopf hardcover. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
What could be more satisfying than listening to a James murder mystery, written as if James herself were a main character, unless paired with that story were a couple of Adam Dalgliesh tales, too? The title short story features a young woman, conceivably James, spending Christmas at an old family estate with estranged relatives, one of whom is murdered. The authorities are clueless as to the responsible party, while the young woman's powers of observation and deduction lead her to understand the crime. The stories featuring Inspector Dalgliesh find him off-duty yet called upon to solve murders-one as a favor for his godfather and the other as he travels to his Christmas destination. The fourth story features a voyeur with a predilection for pornography who has reason not to disclose that an innocent man is being hanged for a murder. Narrators Jenny Agutter and Daniel Weyman keep the listener engaged from start to finish. Verdict A holiday display including this selection would captivate busy patrons looking for entertainment for family trips. Patrons will enjoy these stories all year long. ["These short tales feature James's clever plotting and witty narration with gratifying conclusions": LJ 10/15/16 review of the Knopf hc.]-Ann Weber, Los Gatos, CA © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
The Mistletoe Murder One of the minor hazards of being a bestselling crime novelist is the ubiquitous question, "And have you ever been personally involved with a real-life murder investigation?"; a question occasionally asked with a look and tone which suggest that the Murder Squad of the Metropolitan Police might with advantage dig up my back garden. I invariably reply no, partly from reticence, partly because the truth would take too long to tell and my part in it, even after fifty-two years, is difficult to justify. But now, at seventy, the last survivor of that extraordinary Christmas of 1940, the story can surely safely be told, if only for my own satisfaction. I'll call it "The Mistletoe Murder." Mistletoe plays only a small part in the mystery but I've always liked alliteration in my titles. I have changed the names. There is now no one living to be hurt in feelings or reputation, but I don't see why the dead should be denied a similar indulgence. I was eighteen when it happened, a young war-widow; my husband was killed two weeks after our marriage, one of the first RAF pilots to be shot down in single combat. I had joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, partly because I had convinced myself it would have pleased him, but primarily out of the need to assuage grief by a new life, new responsibilities. It didn't work. Bereavement is like a serious illness. One dies or one survives, and the medicine is time, not a change of scene. I went through my preliminary training in a mood of grim determination to see it through, but when my grandmother's invitation came, just six weeks before Christmas, I accepted with relief. It solved a problem for me. I was an only child and my father, a doctor, had volunteered as a middle--aged recruit to the Royal Army Medical Corps; my mother had taken herself off to America. A number of school friends, some also in the Forces, wrote inviting me for Christmas, but I couldn't face even the subdued festivities of wartime and feared that I should be a skeleton at their family feast. I was curious, too, about my mother's childhood home. She had never got on with her mother and after her marriage the rift was complete. I had met my grandmother only once in childhood and remembered her as formidable, sharp--tongued, and not particularly sympathetic to the young. But I was no longer young, except in years, and what her letter tactfully hinted at--a warm house with plenty of wood fires, home cooking and good wine, peace and quiet--was just what I craved. There would be no other guests, but my cousin Paul hoped to be on leave for Christmas. I was curious to meet him. He was my only surviving cousin, the younger son of my mother's brother and about six years older than I. We had never met, partly because of the family feud, partly because his mother was French and much of his youth spent in that country. His elder brother had died when I was at school. I had a vague childhood memory of some disreputable secret, whispered about but never explained. My grandmother in her letter assured me that, apart from the three of us, there would only be the butler, Seddon, and his wife. She had taken the trouble to find out the time of a country bus which would leave Victoria at 5 p.m. on Christmas Eve and take me as far as the nearest town, where Paul would meet me. The horror of the murder, the concentration on every hour of that traumatic Boxing Day, has diminished my memory of the journey and arrival. I recall Christmas Eve in a series of images, like a gritty black--and--white film, disjointed, a little surreal. The bus, blacked out, crawling, lights dimmed, through the unlit waste of the countryside under a reeling moon; the tall figure of my cousin coming forward out of the darkness to greet me at the terminus; sitting beside him, rug-wrapped, in his sports car as we drove through darkened villages through a sudden swirl of snow. But one image is clear and magical, my first sight of Stutleigh Manor. It loomed up out of the darkness, a stark shape against a grey sky pierced with a few high stars. And then the moon moved from behind a cloud and the house was revealed; beauty, symmetry and mystery bathed in white light. Five minutes later I followed the small circle of light from Paul's torch through the porch with its country paraphernalia of walking-sticks, brogues, rubber boots and umbrellas, under the blackout curtain and into the warmth and brightness of the square hall. I remember the huge log fire in the hearth, the family portraits, the air of shabby comfort, and the mixed bunches of holly and mistletoe above the pictures and doors, which were the only Christmas decoration. My grandmama came slowly down the wide wooden stairs to greet me, smaller than I had remembered, delicately boned and slightly shorter even than my five feet three inches. But her handshake was surprisingly firm and, looking into the sharp, intelligent eyes, at the set of the obstinate mouth, so like my mother's, I knew that she was still formidable. I was glad I had come, glad to meet for the first time my only cousin, but my grandmother had in one respect misled me. There was to be a second guest, a distant relation of the family, who had driven from London earlier and arrived before me.... Excerpted from The Mistletoe Murder by P. D. James. Copyright © 2015 by P. D. James. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. Excerpted from The Mistletoe Murder: And Other Stories by P. D. James All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.