In the very first sentences of her novel P.D. James engages her readership of this Inspector Dalgleish novel: “Exactly three months before the killing at Martingale Mrs Maxie gave a dinner-party. Years later, when the trial was a half-forgotten scandal and the headlines were yellowing on the newspaper lining of cupboard drawers, Eleanor Maxie looked back on that spring evenings the opening scene of a tragedy. Memory, selective and perverse, invested what had been a perfectly ordinary dinner-party with an aura of foreboding an unease……” Just a few well-chosen words convey the passing of time, a sense of history, and reflections on memory.
The precision of her carefully descriptive prose Is further exemplified by “…. The window gave a view of the main hospital entrance farther along the street. In the distance she could discern the shining curve of the river and the towers of Westminster. The ceaseless rumble of traffic was muted, an unobtrusive background to the occasional noises of the hospital, the clang of the lift gates, the ringing of telephone bell, the passing of brisk feet along the corridor….. “
It is in the reflection of this patient precision in the character of her sleuth that, for me, the story had begun to pall as we were presented with a series of interviews by the unflappable and unemotional Detective Chief Inspector’s gradual peeling away of the inconsistencies in the statements of the various members of the house party; indeed I was becoming bored. Perhaps that was Dalgleish’s essential skill. His technique is to calm rather than threaten.
Just in time we are presented with some surprise witnesses and faster moving action sequences which enliven the previously soporific pace.
The author has a deep knowledge of human nature with its ambivalences and contradictions which are often reflected in her well-presented dialogue with emphasis on tone and body language.
In the highly original perspective of his well drawn illustrations Jonathan Burton collaborates with the author in leaving misleading clues, some of which tricked me.
Here we have the front board and spine; the title page and frontispiece of my Folio Society edition.
