Death in Holy Orders (Adam Dalgliesh Mystery Series #11) (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "It was Father Martin's idea that I should write an account of how I found the body..." (more)
Key Phrases: north cloister, south cloister, sacristy door, Father Sebastian, Father Martin, Ronald Treeves (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Despite challenges from Ruth Rendell and (more recently) Minette Walters, P.D. James's position as Britain's Queen of Crime remains largely unassailable. Although a certain reaction has set in to her reputation (and there are those who claim her poetry-loving copper Adam Dalgliesh doesn't correspond to any of his counterparts in the real world), her detractors can scarcely deny her astonishing literary gifts. More than any other writer, she has elevated the detective story into the realms of literature, with the psychology of the characters treated in the most complex and authoritative fashion. Her plots, too, are full of intriguing detail and studed with brilliantly observed character studies. Who cares if Dalgliesh belongs more in the pages of a book than poking around a graffiti-scrawled council estate? As a policeman, he is considerably more plausible than Doyle's Holmes, and that's never stopped us loving the Baker Street sleuth. Death in Holy Orders represents something of a challenge from James to her critics, taking on all the contentious elements and rigorously reinvigorating them. She had admitted that she was finding it increasingly difficult to find new plots for Dalgliesh, and the locale here (a theological college on a lonely stretch of the East Anglian coast) turns out to be an inspired choice. We're presented with the enclosed setting so beloved of golden age detective writers, and James is able to incorporate her theological interests seamlessly into the plot (but never in any doctrinaire way; the nonbeliever is never uncomfortable). The body of a student at the college is found on the shore, suffocated by a fall of sand. Dalgliesh is called upon to reexamine the verdict of accidental death (which the student's father would not accept). Having visited the College of St. Anselm in his boyhood, he finds the investigation has a strong nostalgic aspect for him. But that is soon overtaken by the realization that he has encountered the most horrific case of his career, and another visitor to the college dies a horrible death. As an exploration of evil--and as a piece of highly distinctive crime writing--this is James at her nonpareil best. Dalgliesh, too, is rendered with new dimensions of psychological complexity. --Barry Forshaw, Amazon.co.uk

From Publishers Weekly

Baroness James may have turned 80, but neither she nor her dogged Scotland Yard detective Commander Adam Dalgliesh (last seen in 1997's A Certain Justice) shows any sign of flagging in this superb whodunit, with its extraordinarily complex and nuanced plot and large cast of credible characters. When the body of a young ordinand, Ronald Treeves, turns up buried in a sandy bank on the Suffolk coast near isolated St. Anselm's, a High Anglican theological college, it's unclear whether his death was an accident, suicide or murder. The mystery deepens a few days later when someone suffocates Margaret Munroe, a retired nurse with a bad heart, because she remembers an event 12 years earlier that could have some bearing on whatever's amiss at St. Anselm's. Enter Dalgliesh at the behest of Ronald's father, Sir Alred, who's received an anonymous note suggesting foul play in his son's death. It isn't long before another death occurs, and this time it's clearly murder: late one night in the chapel, somebody bashes in the head of Archdeacon Crampton, a hard-nosed outsider who wanted to close St. Anselm's. Dalgliesh and his investigative team examine the complicated motives of a host of suspects resident at the college, mostly ordinands and priests, slowly unveiling the connections among the various deaths. Illegitimacy, incest, a secret marriage, a missing cloak and a valuable altar triptych are just some of the ingredients in a case as contrived as any Golden Age classic but presented with such masterful ease and conviction that even the most skeptical readers will suspend disbelief. This is a natural for PBS Mystery adaptation. (Apr. 19)Forecast: With a 300,000-copy first printing, this BOMC main selection is sure to race up the bestseller lists.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf; Stated First US edition (April 10, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375412557
• ISBN-13: 978-0375412554
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (111 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #373,581 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 11 in The Adam Dalgliesh (Books) Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In the Characters' Heads ..., May 17, 2001

By	Leigh Ann Hussey "motogrrl" (SF Bay Area, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Nobody gets inside a character's head, lets you see through their eyes, experience their feelings, like P.D. James. You're right there, feeling the same horror a main character feels on discovering a body, understanding completely that feeling of needing to DO something, of bewilderment at seeing something that used to be a person you knew and now is lifeless meat.

So many wonderful details! This too, is one of James' strengths. I really felt right there in an elite seminary on a disintegrating coastline pounded by weather. In fact, the book was so absorbing that I read it straight through, with barely a stop for sleep!

A friend of mine, unfamiliar with James' other works, asked me a question you may also be asking yourself: "Can I start here, or do I need to read the others first?" My answer is, go right ahead and start here. It stands well on its own; recurring characters are introduced gracefully and with just enough backstory to bring a new reader up to speed while not boring a reader already familiar. James is part of the newer generation of British women mystery authors, along with writers like Ngaio Marsh -- more modern-feeling than Christie or Sayers, but if you like Sayers in particular, I think you'll like James.

And if you're already been thru the previous ten AD mysteries? You'll love this one. It's definitely one of the best yet. I'm really really happy I bought it right when it came out, hardcover price notwithstanding.

39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A joy to be reunited with Adam Dalglish, May 24, 2001

By	L. Carter "Steiffbearlover" (NC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

P. D. James is, without doubt, the greatest living mystery writer today. Bar none. "Death In Holy Orders", her latest Adam Dalglish offering, merely cements this fact - as if it needed it.

The body of a young ordinand is discovered, smothered by a collapse of sand, on the beach near St. Anselem's, a theological college on the lonely shores of East Anglia. Ironically, St. Anselem's was also a particularly important place in Dalglish's boyhood and, when he is called to investigate this shocking murder, his journey there represents in microcosm the disparity between the new England and the old, the former way of living butting heads with the new, a theme carried delicately throughout the book in many ways, including the characters and how they live and think.

Subsequently, two more murders are committed - the last a most gruesome, shocking dispatching taking place in the chapel of all places - and Dalglish calls in Kate Miskin and company to assist him in finding the perpetrator.

A new twist added here is the subtle romantic situation occurring in the background between Dalglish and one of the people staying at the college during the murders. The ending is more satisfying than "A Certain Justice" and I liked the fact that Ms. James alludes to Dalglish's feelings about the end of the matter written about in "Justice". He feels he failed, somehow, and these feelings make finding this latest killer an even more urgent matter - not only to stop him killing again, but to reassure Dalglish that justice does, indeed, come around more often than not.

A wonderful novel from a terrific writer.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars James does it again! Hallelujah!, April 17, 2001

By	dikybabe "admeyer" (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews

Whoever loves artful writing and whodunit entwined will love P. D. James' latest Adam Dalgleish mystery. Wonderfully set on the East Anglian coast midst ever-changing and threatening nature where an holy order of priests and would-be priests/ordinands reside, this mystery unwinds around the suspicious accidental death of a rich man's son. And once the on leave Dalgleish joins the inquiry, murders just keep coming.

There is romantic, even incestuous, human fraility in this four part novel. There are jealousy, animosity, cross purposes, greed, deceit, anger, depression and revenge at work. Each character is skillfully drawn, especially those that are linked with Dalgleish's past and present, and the setting exacts added suspense to a seemingly pastoral setting.

The decline of the Arbuthnot estate's endowed theological seminary is central to the plot. One can guess that each character is linked to that demise in some fashion. And just as in a good Agatha Christie novel, the characters are tied to one another openly and in disguise, and await the skillful unraveling of the poetic and sensitive intellect of Dalgleish and his cohorts Kate, Piers, and Robbins.

Such a pleasure to relax into a well-written tome! James makes Dalgleish a friend of the reader, a character come to life, someone we know and willingly follow into a mystery that needs solving.