From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

Death of an Expert Witness (Adam Dalgliesh, #6)

P.D. James

Start date: June 1, 2020

Finish date: June 30, 2020

Discussion: Group Challenges

Why we're reading this: Next in our P.D. James/ Adam Dalgliesh challenge.
[close] Next in our P.D. James/ Adam Dalgliesh challenge.

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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
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last updated Sep 01, 2025 04:16PM

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What Members Thought

Sep 21, 2020 Julie Durnell rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: pd-james, england-uk, mystery

Another multi-layered mystery, with a large cast of characters who are either suspects or related to a suspect. I enjoyed this one a bit more than the previous ones, couldn't quite solve it myself. I really like the way P.D. James writes more than I like Inspector Adam Dalgliesh, a very low key detective. ...more

18 likes · Like · see review

Jan 03, 2015 Jan C rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, audio, 2015, library, re-read, england

Possibly ★★★ 1\2. But it looks as though my rating is about the same as the first time I read it. No memory of the resolution of this book. Maybe it was the fact that I didn't hear it all at one time. It had to go back to the library for a while. So I may have forgotten part of the beginning of the book while I waited to get it again.

Still working my way through P.D. James. A Taste for Death is next. ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Mar 16, 2022 Christine PNW rated it really liked it

One of the most unlikable victims evah. No surprise that someone bashed his head in with a mallet.

2 likes · Like · see review

May 07, 2011 Abbey rated it it was amazing

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

#6 Adam Dalgliesh, a criminalistics lab outside London; cosy police procedural. Superb depiction of a CSI unit of the late 1970s, as murder strikes very close to home. Amazingly detailed regarding then-current procedures but never becomes boring or pedantic, and that’s not easy.

The plotting is, as always, superb, and the characterizations all ring true, with most of the suspects starting out as nice folks and working slowly and subtly down into darkness by the end, each in their own little hell ...more

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Apr 03, 2020 Nanosynergy rated it liked it

Shelves: series, british, fiction, fiction-1970s, mysteries-thrillers-espionage, 2020read

Got to keep your thinking cap on as you read as there are so many primary characters who are suspects. Felt a bit like a cups and balls game. Noticing P.D. James included gays and same-sex couples in her books, including this one published in 1977.

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