Get Hold Of Cover Her Face (Adam Dalgliesh, #1) Assembled By P.D. James Available As Readable Copy
was the title to this book “Cover Her Face” I wonder, When the women was murdered, her face was not covered,
I did not guess whodunit, so that is good,
I liked this quote because it was evocative:
She was dressed in a short tweed skirt and a mans white shirt with a yellow and green woven tie which reminded Stephen unpleasantly of a squashed cabbage caterpillar.
Много скучна и безинтересна история очаквах много повече. Dame Agatha Christie and Her Peers
BOOK
I read a P, D. James book years ago, and instead of finding a "ChristieCozy" relaxing read, I found it to be overly challenging and confusing at times: I had to focus a bit more while reading James than other 'whodidit' type authors.
So, I'm going to give James another try, starting with this, the first in the Dalgiesh series,
CASTstars: Here, Detective Chief Inspector Adam Dalgiesh feels rather flat, but at
a first outing, no author wants to give too much away about a series P.
I. /detective. Mrs. Eleanor Maxie had given a dinner party aboutmonths previous to the current timeline in this book, Something happened, we aren't told what, Dr. Charles Epps, Vicar Bernard Hinks, Miss Liddel warden of St, Mary's Refuge for Girls, Catherine Bowers an amicable nurse, and Dr, Stephen Maxie were at that party, and it appears Bowers and Maxie had been 'involved, " Others had attended that previous party, but here is where things get tricky: some characters in the current timeline/party didn't attend the last one, like Miss Pollock who isnd in charge at St.
Mary's. I liked that in the edition I read and this might be true of all editions, a list of characters were provided up front, The edition of "War and Peace" I read had a nice, thick bookmark with all the main characters and their various names printed on that bookmark, front and back.
Great idea, I'd like to see more of that in books with large casts, Back to "Cover Her Face", I thought the cast solid but no one really stood out, Well, other than the person who may or may not have been standing on a ladder, . . sorry, bad pun, couldn't help it,
ATMOSPHERE/PLACEstars: The Martingale house might be fabulous, might be falling apart, we just don't know, There is a church function, One character's bedroom is initially described as a big, functional nursery with no personal belongings, Later, when Dalgiesh questions the character, we learn there had been figurines on a windowsill which are now broken, Did James realize only late in the book she needed decorative figurines to be broken to advance the plot, Or was the room decorated by the inhabitant as the novel progressed It's impossible well, for me to tell, Given this novel is James first in the series, I did get the impression she was feeling her way through: thus mystar rating for this element,
PLOT/CRIMEstars: During the current timeline/house party, "X" is strangled, That's rather common, but James does add a lockedroom mystery to the murder, so I'm adding a star for astar plot/crime element, In addition, the author opens the novel with what is either a great red herring or a big clue to the solution itself: "Exactlymonths before the killing at Martingale, Mrs.
Maxie gave a dinner party, She'd looked back on that spring evening as the opening scene of tragedy, " You decide: are the clues in the past, or in the present And of those people who attended or did not attend that party, which of them might be the killer in the current timeline.
Great potential here for a mindstretching exercise!
INVESTIGATIONstars, Dagliesh has his work cut out for him, He must interview a lot of people, then reinterview them, He digs deep. But here is my problem: I have eleven yes,pages of notes and questions, Like a list of people who arrived Friday evening for the weekend party just before dinner, then who arrived later Friday night, then the arrivals on Saturday morning, For the Friday dinner, for example, Dagliesh knows Dr, Maxie had arrived late but Catherine his romantic love interest had arrived early, Sunday morning, someone has a headache and takes what appears to be aspirin, but is Sommeil, I could go on and on, Is the need forpages of notes indicative of a good mystery, or does that mean James didn't really have a specific goal I'll go with the latter explanation in this case.
SOLUTIONstar: A spectacular failure, James commits the ultimate 'sin' in the world of murder mysteries: she introduces a new character at almost the end of the book, Things change so dramatically and quickly that the first/rds of the book andpages of my notes were rendered pointless,
SUMMARY: P. D. James goes for 'big' here and even though the author does explain the central crime mostly, withholding final clues is just irritating, And some of my written questions in my notes weren't answered, like, "Felix Hearne, a current suspect, was NOT at the previous partymonths ago, IF the tragedy had truly beganmonths ago as James suggested in the opening of the novel and thus the murder plans had startedmonths ago, when did Felix become involved" Or, "On page, what did Mrs.
Maxie ask her son when he called the cops after the crime had been committed" As I said, I remembered James as being challenging, I remembered correctly. And this may have been the book I read! I'm going to read more of James and take a different approach: maybe I should just forego taking notes, But I so like to figure 'whodidit' and notes usually help, While I do admire her 'big' goal, James' talent as represented here isn't within her grasp, It's been a long time since I read a book by this author, but I think I remember having liked them, Maybe the other books were better or maybe I have just outgrown my interest in mysteries, at least the British variety with tea cups, jam jars, jumble sales and small gossipy villages.
Whatever the reason, I was really unimpressed by this book,
Most of the suspects were introduced in tedious detail in the first chapter, but the murder did not occur until about thepoint of the book, At that time Detective Adam Dalgliesh arrived on the scene, but he did very little "detecting" thereafter, He was barely in the book other than to conduct long interviews with the suspects and then, in the ultimate cliché, gather them all together in one room to declare the crime solved.
The solution involved secret relatives and missing limbs, I had not guessed the criminal, so that's something in it's favor, I didn't really dislike this book, I've just moved on,.stars
If you are looking for a fastpaced thriller, this book is NOT for you, I read it for several weeks at bedtime and dropped off each night after a couple of pages, I give it high marks for inducing sleep! I just now realized that I read this book nine years ago and remembered none of it, I had given it a two star rating then, but didn't review it,
In this first book of the series, Inspector Dalgliesh interviews and investigates each murder suspect at length, The suspects include the family, staff and dinner guests at a country estate, relatives of the murdered woman and several villagers, Dalgliesh conducts his investigation in great detail, somewhat like peeling back the layers of an onion, until I nodded off,
It was heartening to know that attitudes about sexual harassment have advanced since the publication of this book in , Here is an example that made my jaw drop: ", . . Sally was sent down to the packingroom with a message, Apparently he made some kind of sexual advance to her, It can't have been serious, The man was genuinely surprised when he got the sack for it, He may only have tried to kiss her, I never did get the whole story, But from the fuss she made you'd have thought she was stripped naked and raped, It was all very estimable of her to be so shocked, but most girls today seem to be able to cope with that kind of situation without having hysterics.
" p Unbelievable! Blame Sally for not being able to cope with the disgusting creep! At least he got the sack, which was probably unusual for the time,
I upped my rating slightly based on the ending which had a couple of unexpected twists, The ending was actually pretty good, I'm not sure if I will continue with the Dalgliesh series, but maybe bookwill also be a good soporific, Back to basics! I switched from modern cozies and crime fiction to a supposed blast from the past, I remembered a few PD James novels I read in college as part of my mystery fiction independent studies and decided to start the series,
As expected, very reminiscent of Agatha Christie but with a little more modern appeal, I enjoyed the characters and premise for a traditional whodunit!
I also like the wrap up of all the main characters in the end, as well as that at least one of them is seen again in future novels no spoilers here!.
If you're a traditional mystery buff, or have an avid whodunit interest, you may be able to figure the culprit on your own, but rest assured, it's not as simple as X did it the candlestick in the library!
Remember the movie Clue!!!
Meh.
P. D. James is a competent writer and puts together a reasonable mystery, but there's nothing exciting about it I felt like I'd read it before, honestly, The Kindle version has very bad formatting, too "that" turns into "mat", for example no one bothered to proofread it, None of the characters are particularly interesting to me again, I seemed to have read all about them before, in other crime novels,
I think I had the same reaction to another P, D. James book, so maybe I just don't care for James' work, I read this book EONS ago but had totally forgotten the plot, the mystery and the killer, so it was truly like reading it for the first time, Now I'm interested enough to reread more of my books by this author, If you haven't read it, go get a copy, It's a great book, a great mystery, filled with enough suspects and red herrings to keep the most avid mystery fan interested through the entire book, I thought I had it figured out but I was so off the mark it wasn't funny,
brief summary, no spoilers
Sally Jupp is a very attractive, unwed mother who has been taken on as a maid in the Maxie household, Sally has come from a home for unwed mothers and lives at the house with her infant son, Every year the church holds an annual celebration a fete this year, the day after the proceedings finds Sally dead at unknown hands, behind locked doors, Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard must figure out who killed her, but there are many motives and many suspects to rule out before he can do his job,
As I said, an awesome book, one I very highly recommend, Mystery readers, especially those who enjoy a good British whodunit, will really enjoy this one, It is NOT a cozy, so prepare to spend some time with it! After my brain injury, PD James became a marker for me in my reading progress, Preinjury I read every one of her books and enjoyed them tremendously for their good writing and good stories, After my injury though, with my reading ability fried, I couldn't read any of her books, Too many characters to follow, plots that meandered beyond my ability to follow, writing at a grade level higher than what I'd sunk down to, . . It was rather disappointing to see her new books come out over the years and know I wouldn't read them,
And then I was enrolled in a research drug trial in March, I felt my cognitive abilities shift, and I suddenly realised I was reading more, I dared to try a PD James, I followed my rehab therapists' advice: read a book I'd already read, tis easier, And so I went all the way back to James's first Dalgliesh book,
It felt quite familiar,
I'd begun reading PD James in my teens, an age when I still reread books sometime in my twenties I stopped rereading them because as soon as I'd read the first paragraph, the entire book would flood back into my memory.
And so I'd probably reread Cover Her Face a few times years ago, Also, the story is reminiscent of a couple of Agatha Christie mysteries which I continued to reread after my brain injury, making the plot familiar in several ways, Even so, I did have some trouble keeping track of the characters, and I only solved the mystery near the end, which is better than my usual notsolvingthemysteryatall track record since the injury.
But the writing was demonstrably superior to many of the books I've been reading, It was rather satisfying to sink my teeth into a book fully of layers and complexities due to the author's good command of the language,
I enjoyed it immensely, I read this book to fill the International Woman of Mystery square of myHalloween Bingo Card,
This is my first foray into P, D. James mystery writing and I was pleasantly impressed, I can certainly see a relationship to the works of Agatha Christiebut I guess it is virtually impossible to write in this genre without paying homage to both her and Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes.
What James does so well is to make me feel like I truly know the people that she is writing about, They arent just cardboard cutouts, they are fully realized people with their own motivations and prejudices, They are part of their community, well known and involved,
What she also captures so well, in my opinion, is the way that society was changing in the lates and earlys, Class was becoming less meaningful and less respected, Sexual mores were already shifting and loosening, Charity from upper class people was less valued and more resented,
In Dalgleish himself, I see the roots of another favourite detective, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, written by Louise Penny, They are both quiet, introspective, intellectual men who have good taste and good sense, I didnt get to know Adam Dalgliesh as well as I would like to in this first book, but I will certainly go on to the next book to see if I can remedy that situation.
.