Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
---|---|---|
Searching... McMinnville Public Library | James, P. | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Dallas Public Library | MYSTERY - JAMES | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Monmouth Public Library | Fic (m) James, P. 2016 | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Newberg Public Library | MYSTERY JAMES | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Salem Main Library | MYSTERY James, P. | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Silver Falls Library | MYS JAMES | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Stayton Public Library | M JAMES P.D. | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Woodburn Public Library | James | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Woodburn Public Library | James | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Four previously uncollected stories from one of the great mystery writers of our time--swift, cunning murder mysteries (two of which feature the young Adam Dalgliesh) that together, to borrow the author's own word, add up to a delightful "entertainment."
The newly appointed Sgt. Dalgliesh is drawn into a case that is "pure Agatha Christie." . . . A "pedantic, respectable, censorious" clerk's secret taste for pornography is only the first reason he finds for not coming forward as a witness to a murder . . . A best-selling crime novelist describes the crime she herself was involved in fifty years earlier . . . Dalgliesh's godfather implores him to reinvestigate a notorious murder that might ease the godfather's mind about an inheritance, but which will reveal a truth that even the supremely upstanding Adam Dalgliesh will keep to himself. Each of these stories is as playful as it is ingeniously plotted, the author's sly humor as evident as her hallmark narrative elegance and shrewd understanding of some of the most complex--not to say the most damning--aspects of human nature. A treat for P. D. James's legions of fans and anyone who enjoys the pleasures of a masterfully wrought whodunit.
Author Notes
P. D. James, pseudonym of Phyllis Dorothy James White, was born on August 3, 1920 in Oxford, England. During World War II, she served as a Red Cross nurse. She worked in administration for 19 years with the National Health Service. After the death of her husband in 1964, she took a Civil Service examination and became an administrator in the forensic science and criminal law divisions of the Department of Home Affairs. She spent 30 years in British Civil Service. She became Baroness James of Holland Park in 1991.
Her first novel, Cover Her Face, was published in 1962. She wrote approximately 20 books during her lifetime including the Adam Dalgliesh Mystery series, the Cordelia Gray Mystery series, and Death Comes to Pemberley. She became a full-time writer in 1979. Three titles in the Adam Dalgliesh Mystery series received the Silver Dagger award--Shroud for a Nightingale, The Black Tower, and A Taste for Death. In 2000, she published her autobiography, Time to Be in Earnest. Her dystopian novel, The Children of Men, was adapted into a movie in 2006. She received the Diamond Dagger award for lifetime achievement. She died on November 27, 2014 at the age of 94.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Two of this quartet of posthumously collected short stories feature James's New Scotland Yard sleuth, Supt. Adam Dalgliesh, narrated crisply and with touches of wry humor by reader Weyman, the voice of the poet-detective in previous audiobooks. In "The Boxdale Inheritance," Dalgliesh investigates an infamous 67-year-old murder case, while "The Twelve Clues of Christmas" presents a younger, newly minted Sergeant Dalgliesh who, on his way to his aunt's Christmas Eve dinner, is interrupted by a frantic man who has just discovered his uncle's apparent suicide. James brightens all four tales with metafictional touches-from unapologetic references to her use of mystery tropes to allusions to Agatha Christie's works. Weyman's narration dryly takes note of these, as does Agutter's in the other two stories. Her reading of "A Very Commonplace Murder," a study of a smarmy, porn-addicted clerk who could alter a murder trial but doesn't, is hard-edged and at times venomous. Her tone softens for the title piece, matching its narrator, an elderly popular crime novelist who recalls a Christmas half a century before when she wound up involved in a vicious murder. Agutter also provides a rather aloof rendition of a brief but informative essay by James on short crime fiction. A Knopf hardcover. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A slender collection that reprints four of the 20 mystery stories James left behind at her death in 2014.Murder comes for Christmas in two of these deceptively decorous tales. In the 1991 title story, a mystery author recalls the murder of an obnoxious guest during an anxious Christmas visit in 1940. The list of suspects is so short that its hard to imagine how James will pull off any surprises, but many readers will gasp at the very last sentence. The Twelve Clues of Christmas shows newly minted Sgt. Adam Dalgliesh assisting and ultimately impressing his superior officer by producing no less than a dozen clues that lead to the murderer of the eminently dispensable paterfamilias whose suicide note is just another red herring. In The Boxdale Inheritance, originally published as Great Aunt Allies Flypapers in 1979, Chief Superintendent Dalglieshs godfather asks him to assuage reservations about an inheritance hes due by assuring him that his great aunt Allie didnt take possession of the estate by feeding her much older husband arsenic 67 years ago. All three of these stories are as accomplished and literate as youd expect, but the real prize is James very first short story, Moment of Power, originally published in 1968 and here retitled A Very Commonplace Murder: not a detective story but a memorably creepy tale about a voyeur whose spying puts him in a position to exonerate a man accused of murder but who wonders whether hell do anything of the sort. Unfortunately, Val McDermids brief introduction includes no information about the stories original publication and no hint of how these four stories came to be selected from among the authors 20. Still, no one would take exception to the concluding sentiment in McDermid's introduction: These stories are a delicious gift to us at a time when we thought we would read no more of P.D. Jamess work. James fans can only hope for several more such gifts. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Four previously uncollected stories appear as a kind of after-dinner chocolate left on the pillows of the late mystery master's fans. As Val McDermid notes in her insightful foreword, James often employed the conventions of the cozy, but she was anything but cozy, wittily subverting those conventions to tell much darker tales. That is certainly true in these four spot-on stories, two of which star James' much-loved series hero, Adam Dalgliesh, at earlier stages of his career. Dalgliesh himself describes one of the plots, that of The Twelve Clues of Christmas, as being pure Agatha Christie, and so it is, except for the brutality of the murder itself. Perhaps the jewel in this very small but sparkling crown is the other Dalgliesh story, The Boxdale Inheritance, in which, as often happens in James' novels, Dalgliesh has little trouble identifying the murderer but acts out of concern for the individuals involved rather than from any rigid sense of justice. McDermid sums up the collection perfectly: These stories are a delicious gift to us at a time when we thought we would read no more of P. D. James' work. --Ott, Bill Copyright 2016 Booklist
Library Journal Review
What could be more satisfying than listening to a James murder mystery, written as if James herself were a main character, unless paired with that story were a couple of Adam Dalgliesh tales, too? The title short story features a young woman, conceivably James, spending Christmas at an old family estate with estranged relatives, one of whom is murdered. The authorities are clueless as to the responsible party, while the young woman's powers of observation and deduction lead her to understand the crime. The stories featuring Inspector Dalgliesh find him off-duty yet called upon to solve murders-one as a favor for his godfather and the other as he travels to his Christmas destination. The fourth story features a voyeur with a predilection for pornography who has reason not to disclose that an innocent man is being hanged for a murder. Narrators Jenny Agutter and Daniel Weyman keep the listener engaged from start to finish. Verdict A holiday display including this selection would captivate busy patrons looking for entertainment for family trips. Patrons will enjoy these stories all year long. ["These short tales feature James's clever plotting and witty narration with gratifying conclusions": LJ 10/15/16 review of the Knopf hc.]-Ann Weber, Los Gatos, CA © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.