Shroud for a Nightingale (Adam Dalgliesh Mystery Series #4) [Paperback]

P. D. James (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 4, 2001

The young women of Nightingale House are there to learn to nurse and comfort the suffering. But when one of the students plays patient in a demonstration of nursing skills, she is horribly, brutally killed. Another student dies equally mysteriously, and it is up to Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard to unmask a killer who has decided to prescribe murder as the cure for all ills.

The New York Times called Shroud for a Nightingale "mystery at its best."

Editorial Reviews

Review

Time The reigning mistress of murder.

People P. D. James is "the greatest living mystery writer."

From the Inside Flap

An Adam Dalgliesh mystery by an award-winning, internationally acclaimed novelist.

Two student nurses lie dead, the great hospital nursing school of Nightingale House is shadowed with terror, and a secret medical world of sex, shame, and scandal is about to be exposed. It is the job of Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard to probe even deeper into the macabre mystery and unmask a killer who operates as skillfully as a surgeon -- before the epidemic of evil gets completely out of hand. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone; 1st Scribner Paperback Fiction edition (September 4, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743219600
• ISBN-13: 978-0743219600
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #115,437 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

P. D. James is the author of twenty previous books, most of which have been filmed and broadcast on television in the United States and other countries. She spent thirty years in various departments of the British Civil Service, including the Police and Criminal Law Departments of Great Britain's Home Office. She has served as a magistrate and as a governor of the BBC. In 2000 she celebrated her eightieth birthday and published her autobiography, Time to Be in Earnest. The recipient of many prizes and honors, she was created Baroness James of Holland Park in 1991 and was inducted into the International Crime Writing Hall of Fame in 2008. She lives in London and Oxford.

Photo credit Ulla Montan

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of James' best, July 20, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Shroud for a Nightingale (Adam Dalgliesh Mystery Series #4) (Paperback)

Adam Dalgliesh investigates the murders of two young student nurses at Nightingale House, the former by intra-gastric poisoning, the second by nicotine poisoning. His detective work leads him into a chilling world of deception, long-buried secrets, repressed sexuality, and blackmail among an almost exclusively female list of suspects.

This is James at her most provocative, her most intriguing, and her most thrilling. The plot is one of her most brilliantly conceived--not only are there plenty of well-laid clues and red herrings, but the murderer's true identity comes as a surprising twist. James' plot construction is even more sound than usual--everything fits perfectly. But anyone who reads a James novel knows that there's more to her books than just a satisfying mystery. She offers the reader a lot to think about--the motive behind the murders is both shocking and thought-provoking, and Dalgliesh is written with great sensitivity and complexity as a human being! . His subordinate, Sergeant Masterson, is a rather unsavory but interesting character, and the suspects are all extremely well-developed and vividly drawn. The setting, a dark, lonely nurse training school with a frightening history, creates atmosphere and adds suspense to an already suspenseful plot.

Read this book--you won't be disappointed.

33 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terror at Nightingale House, September 15, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Shroud for a Nightingale (Adam Dalgliesh Mystery Series #4) (Paperback)

With her fourth Adam Dalgliesh novel, "Shroud for a Nightingale," P. D James ventured into new and dark territory, both in terms of the mystery and underlying themes.

The first three novels in the Dalgliesh canon were, for the most part, traditional mystery novels with characters who you sensed were complex human beings, but who were never fleshed out entirely, as if to do so would be violating the "rules" of the detective story.

With "Shroud for a Nightingale," however, P. D. James introduced us into the dark world of Nightingale House, where nurses, nursing students, physicians, and patients suddenly find a double murderer in their midst.

This is the first of P. D. James's novels in which the characters' pasts are truly made to bear on the present. By the end of the novel, we are terrified at the bounds of loyalty and deception to which our fellow human beings are capable.

The terror in "Shroud for a Nightingale" is there from the start, as the first victim-to-be meets a demise that, simply put, is worthy of a horror novel. Such horror, when expressed in James's elegant prose, becomes even more frightening.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Keeps you guessing, February 1, 2001

By 

Elizabeth Hendry (New Jersey USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Shroud for a Nightingale (Adam Dalgliesh Mystery Series #4) (Paperback)

Shroud for a Nightingale is a well-written, well-plotted mystery that will keep you guessing. A young student nurse dies during a training exercise, another is found dead in her bed. The first could have been the result of a practical joke gone bad, the second, a suicide. Or they both could be murder. P.D. James will keep you guessing until the end as to the truth about these deaths and the truth about the nurses, the doctors, the instructors at this very deadly hospital.