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Deadly Pleasures: The Black Tower / Death of an Expert Witness / The Skull Beneath the Skin
Book is NEW. Bright clean dust jacket has slight edge wear. Text is perfect. Same day shipping from AZ.
981 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1982
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About the author
P.D. James
322 books3,256 followersP. D. James, byname of Phyllis Dorothy James White, Baroness James of Holland Park, (born August 3, 1920, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England—died November 27, 2014, Oxford), British mystery novelist best known for her fictional detective Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard.
The daughter of a middle-grade civil servant, James grew up in the university town of Cambridge. Her formal education, however, ended at age 16 because of lack of funds, and she was thereafter self-educated. In 1941 she married Ernest C.B. White, a medical student and future physician, who returned home from wartime service mentally deranged and spent much of the rest of his life in psychiatric hospitals. To support her family (which included two children), she took work in hospital administration and, after her husband’s death in 1964, became a civil servant in the criminal section of the Department of Home Affairs. Her first mystery novel, Cover Her Face (1962), introduced Dalgliesh and was followed by six more mysteries before she retired from government service in 1979 to devote full time to writing.
Dalgliesh, James’s master detective who rises from chief inspector in the first novel to chief superintendent and then to commander, is a serious, introspective person, moralistic yet realistic. The novels in which he appears are peopled by fully rounded characters, who are civilized, genteel, and motivated. The public resonance created by James’s singular characterization and deployment of classic mystery devices led to most of the novels featuring Dalgliesh being filmed for television. James, who earned the sobriquet “Queen of Crime,” penned 14 Dalgliesh novels, with the last, The Private Patient, appearing in 2008.
James also wrote An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972) and The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982), which centre on Cordelia Gray, a young private detective. The first of these novels was the basis for both a television movie and a short-lived series. James expanded beyond the mystery genre in The Children of Men (1992; film 2006), which explores a dystopian world in which the human race has become infertile. Her final work, Death Comes to Pemberley (2011)—a sequel to Pride and Prejudice (1813)—amplifies the class and relationship tensions between Jane Austen’s characters by situating them in the midst of a murder investigation. James’s nonfiction works include The Maul and the Pear Tree (1971), a telling of the Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811 written with historian T.A. Critchley, and the insightful Talking About Detective Fiction (2009). Her memoir, Time to Be in Earnest, was published in 2000. She was made OBE in 1983 and was named a life peer in 1991.
The daughter of a middle-grade civil servant, James grew up in the university town of Cambridge. Her formal education, however, ended at age 16 because of lack of funds, and she was thereafter self-educated. In 1941 she married Ernest C.B. White, a medical student and future physician, who returned home from wartime service mentally deranged and spent much of the rest of his life in psychiatric hospitals. To support her family (which included two children), she took work in hospital administration and, after her husband’s death in 1964, became a civil servant in the criminal section of the Department of Home Affairs. Her first mystery novel, Cover Her Face (1962), introduced Dalgliesh and was followed by six more mysteries before she retired from government service in 1979 to devote full time to writing.
Dalgliesh, James’s master detective who rises from chief inspector in the first novel to chief superintendent and then to commander, is a serious, introspective person, moralistic yet realistic. The novels in which he appears are peopled by fully rounded characters, who are civilized, genteel, and motivated. The public resonance created by James’s singular characterization and deployment of classic mystery devices led to most of the novels featuring Dalgliesh being filmed for television. James, who earned the sobriquet “Queen of Crime,” penned 14 Dalgliesh novels, with the last, The Private Patient, appearing in 2008.
James also wrote An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972) and The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982), which centre on Cordelia Gray, a young private detective. The first of these novels was the basis for both a television movie and a short-lived series. James expanded beyond the mystery genre in The Children of Men (1992; film 2006), which explores a dystopian world in which the human race has become infertile. Her final work, Death Comes to Pemberley (2011)—a sequel to Pride and Prejudice (1813)—amplifies the class and relationship tensions between Jane Austen’s characters by situating them in the midst of a murder investigation. James’s nonfiction works include The Maul and the Pear Tree (1971), a telling of the Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811 written with historian T.A. Critchley, and the insightful Talking About Detective Fiction (2009). Her memoir, Time to Be in Earnest, was published in 2000. She was made OBE in 1983 and was named a life peer in 1991.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
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December 7, 2010Another audio reread. This is the second (and last) of the Cordelia Gray books. It's not nearly as good as the first one. The set up is too long and there's no body for about a million pages. The lack of a corpse isn't a problem but the fact that there isn't really any air of impending doom is. James's array of upper class characters all seem to lack a third dimension. The island setting is the best part of the book and even that isn't very well evoked. I had real trouble with there being a character called Clarissa as well as the character called Cordelia. The names were too similar and the characters too wooden for me to keep them apart.
At the end of the book Cordelia decides that she's better off investigating lost kittens than murders. It's a curious way to end a book but you can't help getting the impression that PD James was already bored with Cordelia before she finished this second book so I think she is better left to her own devices.
April 10, 2019
The second novel is excellent while the first, for me, was mainly to get acquainted with this authors writing style. The third novel was om par with the first. Ok, but I'd rather have just read the second.
April 27, 2011
P.D. James always takes a while for me to get into (I think it's because of the sheer volume of characters and getting names sorted out in my head), but the payoff always seems worth it.
November 5, 2023
I am biased. All of P D James' Dalgleish novels intrigue and engage me. Certainly, the quality of the novels and their plot twists are not all the same. For the most part, this 3-story anthology is well worth the read.
October 31, 2010
The author must deeply despise medical workers and caregivers; a few of her books are set in hospitals and nursing homes and no one is drawn favorably.
This story is set in a nursing home for young people - people with DS (sounds like MS) and other physical degenerative diseases. Its obvious all the caregivers have psychological diseases and like the rest of James' novels, are all at each others' throats.
Dagleish has his usual existential struggles, but not as exhausting as in later books. Strong, silent, able to draw out reluctant witnesses with his calmness. Excellent suspenseful action in the last 20 pages.
Problem: a minor character is on a bus out of the country, but for a contrived reason has to come back to the home. It isn't explained how he traveled from the bus to the home in a short amount of time. There are a few other "huh?"s in there, but they don't kill the story.
This story is set in a nursing home for young people - people with DS (sounds like MS) and other physical degenerative diseases. Its obvious all the caregivers have psychological diseases and like the rest of James' novels, are all at each others' throats.
Dagleish has his usual existential struggles, but not as exhausting as in later books. Strong, silent, able to draw out reluctant witnesses with his calmness. Excellent suspenseful action in the last 20 pages.
Problem: a minor character is on a bus out of the country, but for a contrived reason has to come back to the home. It isn't explained how he traveled from the bus to the home in a short amount of time. There are a few other "huh?"s in there, but they don't kill the story.
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December 12, 2018Picked up at book sale - not realizing that two of the 3 books in this compiliation I'd already read.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews