P. D. James

From the front flap: The Dupayne, a small private museum on the edge of London's Hampstead Heath devoted to the interwar years 1919-39, is in turmoil. The trustees—the three children of the museum founder, old Max Dupayne—are bitterly at odds over whether it should be closed. Then one of them is brutally murdered, and what seemed to be no more than a family dispute erupts … [Read more...] about The Murder Room by P. D. James: B+

From the back cover: On the East Anglican seacoast a small theological college hangs precariously on an eroding shoreline and an equally precarious future. Then, the body of a student is found buried in the sand, and the boy's influential father demands that Scotland Yard investigate. Adam Dalgliesh, the son of a parson, once spent happy summers at the school. A detective … [Read more...] about Death in Holy Orders by P. D. James: A

Book description: Venetia Aldridge is a criminal lawyer of large talents and small personal charm, working at a venerable London firm. As she tries to save a young lower-class tough who is accused of murdering his prostitute aunt, it is revealed that she is in a position to ruin a number of professional lives, and is of precisely the temperament to do it. When she is found … [Read more...] about A Certain Justice by P. D. James: A

From the inside flappydoodle: Commander Adam Dalgliesh and his team are confronted with a puzzle of baffling complexity. A murder has taken place in the offices of the Peverell Press, a venerable London publishing house located in a dramatic mock-Venetian palace on the Thames. The victim is Gerard Etienne, the brilliant but ruthless new managing director, who had vowed to … [Read more...] about Original Sin by P. D. James: B+

From the back cover: An intriguing assignment, Cordelia Gray thought, and not a particularly arduous one. The poison pen messages to Clarissa Lyle were to be stopped—or at least deflected—until after the performance of The Duchess of Malfi at Ambrose Gorringe's private theatre on Courcy Island. It soon becomes apparent however that Clarissa Lyle's enemy is on the island with … [Read more...] about The Skull Beneath the Skin by P. D. James: A-