From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

Unnatural Causes (Adam Dalgliesh, #3)

P.D. James

Start date: March 1, 2020

Finish date: March 31, 2020

Discussion: Group Challenges

Why we're reading this: Next in our PD James/Inspector Dalgliesh challenge for 2020
[close] Next in our PD James/Inspector Dalgliesh challenge for 2020

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Showing 2 of 166 topics — 7,784 comments total

Group Challenges

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) by Agatha Christie
By Susan · 14 posts · 16 views

last updated Sep 02, 2025 12:08AM

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) - SPOILER Thread
By Susan · 4 posts · 12 views

last updated Sep 01, 2025 04:16PM

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What Members Thought

Mar 26, 2020 Julie Durnell rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: england-uk, mystery, pd-james

This third book is a charm in my opinion! I struggled with the first two and if this one went down like the others I was giving up. The writing was engaging, vocabulary was top notch without being too pedantic, plot was beautifully contrived, and the setting in coastal Suffolk was perfectly atmospheric. While I had guessed the who dunnit, I couldn't figure out the how or why dunnit. I feel like I know a little more about Inspector Dalgleish, even though it took a busman's holiday to see glimpses ...more

17 likes · Like · see review

Dec 31, 2019 Christine PNW rated it really liked it

This is the third Adam Dalgleish book, and was a library check out for me. I decided to revisit P.D. James this year as part of my "Century of Women" project. Unnatural Causes is the third in the series, and was published in 1967.

This is my favorite book so far because it was so cleverly plotted. The victim is a mystery writer, and is found in circumstances that feel like something out of his next planned book. Well after his death, an envelope containing the typed opening of his next book is re ...more

9 likes · Like · see review

Apr 11, 2010 Jan C rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: library, audio, mystery, 2014

Before I started I couldn't remember whether I had read this before or not. I don't think I read this one. I think I would remember this.

A couple of years ago I decided to go back to the beginning and work my way through. I am finding that I haven't read as many of her books as I thought I had. Either that, or my memory isn't what I thought it was. Because no bells are going off.

I listened to this one. Adam Dalgliesh takes an annual visit to his elderly aunt on the shore (and don't ask me what ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Mar 20, 2020 Nanosynergy rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: british, mysteries-thrillers-espionage, 2020read, series, fiction, fiction-1960s

Nice start. A fun cast of characters and suspects. Liked the no nonsense, independent, bird-loving Aunt Jane who knits using the continental style just like Miss Silver in the older Patricia Wentworth series. Skeptical that one can distinguish different typists if they type the same text using the exact same typewriter. Going to have to explore this. Perhaps for older typewriters the strength of the strike of the key results in a differing, distinct look on the paper. While the murderer seemed a ...more

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May 07, 2011 Abbey rated it it was amazing

Shelves: myst-police, vintage, myst-fems-project, myst-cosies, myst-set-andor-auth-uk, favorites, reviewed, series

#3 Adam Dalgliesh, vacationing with his aunt on the wild coast of England; cosy police procedural + amateur sleuths. Literary mayhem might have caused literary, and real life, murder, when an obnoxious author gets bumped off in a spectacular manner, but then appears to have died from natural causes.

Filled with arty types all stepping on each others’ toes, including a reclusive one-book phenom, a detective author who churns ‘em out, an artsyfartsy overly precise nitpicking critic, a Cartland-esq ...more

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