Most helpful customer reviews
|
|
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A MODULATED, PRECISE READING, Nov 28 2008
London born actress Rosalyn Landor is the perfect choice to read a P. D. James mystery. The daughter of an actor/broadcaster Landor grew up with reading aloud, story telling, and that love for the spoken word is reflected in her voice performances. Her readings are well modulated, precise as she carries listeners along to what is in this case a surprising denouement.
What lover of mysteries has not read or at least heard of P.D. James? The author of 19 books she spent some 30 years in the British Civil Service and recently celebrated her 88th birthday. One of her many gifts to readers is the creation of Commander Adam Dalgliesh, a consummate investigator who is often given to Holmesian discussions as he presents his thoughts to various characters and suspects.
With The Private Patient we visit an impressive old house, Cheverell Manor in Dorset. Once a family home it was sold of necessity to an eminent plastic surgeon, George H. Chandler-Powell, who now operates it as a clinic for the privileged. Rhoda Gradwyn comes to him for the removal of a disfiguring facial scar. She's an investigative journalist (her work is similar to that of a reporter for a supermarket tabloid in the USA). She's with us only briefly as she's soon dead of strangulation, a murder committed by an unknown person wearing latex gloves.
While the crime most definitely has affected Rhoda, it also affects the good doctor as who would want to come to a clinic where a murder has just occurred? Commander Dalgliesh is summoned to investigate. He has a great deal to look into considering the clinic staff, the departed's boyfriend, and others who were a part of her life for good or ill.
Once again James treats us to her vivid descriptions of setting and extensive vocabulary - the perfect word for every thought and situation. A pleasure to read - do so slowly and savor this author's unique style.
- Gail Cooke
|
|
|
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The private patient, a clever thriller, Jun 17 2009
An excellent thriller. The author keeps us until the last word thinking that what we think being the thruth will come out. But she had something else in mind. Extremely well written, I felt the writing assurance of an expert writer, which I am convinced is the result of long hours of editing. Her perfectionism guaranties rewarding reading.
|
|
|
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Under the knife, Jan 10 2009
Most people who die because of plastic surgery have a bad reaction to the anesthetic or something like that.
Few plastic surgery patients are strangled. But that is the crime du jour of the fourteenth Adam Dalgleish novel, a quietly tangled web of motives and suspicious characters in a classic mystery setting. But P.D. James elevates your average whodunnit with her refined brand of police investigation, as well as the bittersweet meditations on aging, love and loneliness.
For the past thirty years, investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn has had a chasmic scar on her face. But now she decides to have it repaired by the eminent plastic surgeon George Chandler-Powell, at his beautiful old manorhouse. But mere hours after the surgery, Rhoda is found strangled, and Adam Dalgleish is called in to investigate who in the Manor wanted her dead.
Turns out that there are a number of motives, some more coldly rational than others -- Rhoda's boytoy, the mentor of a girl Gradwyn destroyed, and a young woman with a gruesome past. With plenty of people who could have done it, Dalgleish must unravel who actually did do it, and the secret motives that others are keeping hidden. But he may not be in time to prevent more deaths...
"The Private Patient" is a book preoccupied by the passage of time. Lonely futures, sad pasts, the "flattening" of aging, the world changing and people losing their family homes. Even Dalgleish's impending wedding has a bittersweet edge, since it heralds changes among his friendships. Yet P.D. James makes sure to remind us that love and friendship can overcome the sadness of change and loss.
And with the sure hand of an experienced writer, James spins a solid whodunnit with plenty of red herrings and a wealth of suspects. While the first few chapters are a bit slow -- do we REALLY need the life story of every member of the Manor staff? -- everything speeds up after the first murder. It quietly chugs along up through ghastly backstories (the child-murder case), right up to the hallucinatory, fiery climax at a ring of stones where an alleged witch was once burned.
While most of the story is devoted to basic police investigations, James also fills it with a beautiful, picturesque atmosphere ("... burnishing the trunks of the beech tees and bathing the stones of the manor in a silvery glow") and literary allusions (Oscar Wilde and Thomas Hardy, among others). Most strikingly, she gives the modern police grind a refined, elegant edge that harkens back to a previous age.
And James handles Dalgleish with fondness and warmth, whether it's making a horribly awkward visit to his future father-in-law (very "Importance of Being Earnest") or navigating a crime maze with his partners. And he has some personal problems to deal with as well, since some close friends are victims of a horrible crime -- plus there's that whole impending wedding thing.
As befits a mystery, the supporting characters are given the shadowy dimensions of acquaintances -- we have some idea of their lives and personalities, but not really whether they are the murderer. And James handles some of the seemingly cliche characters -- the crazy girl, the prettyboy wastrel, the haughty doctor -- quite gracefully.
"The Private Patient" is a murder mystery that blossoms into a bittersweet exploration of passing time, with haunting writing and a solid plot. Definitely deserving of notice.
|
|
|
Most recent customer reviews
|
by Peter Robinson
by Ian Rankin
by John Le Carre
by Elizabeth George
by P.D. James
