Shroud for a Nightingale [Paperback]

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.

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.