Death in Holy Orders

There were rather more unsympathetic characters in this novel than there are in others I thought, perhaps that is why some readers have been dissatisfied with this novel.

Mirfields or St. Stephens? You decide

"It's not every day one experiences vicariously the excitement of murder." (1/1 people found this helpful)

The isolated theological college on the Norfolk coast is a classic Golden Age-style setting for a murder, but it's far from clear that it's murder we're dealing with. Ronald Treeves, one of the students, is found dead on the beach, his head buried under a cliff fall. The verdict is suicide. The subsequent death of Margaret Monroe, the college matron, appears to be an entirely natural case of heart failure. Sir Alred Treeves, Ronald's father, refuses to take his son's death at face value, and insists that Scotland Yard send in their best man. Enter Adam Dalgliesh.

Naturally, the scenario Dalgliesh discovers is not one of innocent sociability. A paedophile priest, an incestuous pigman, a psychotic policeman and an ordinand just too good looking for anyone's well-being seem to offer infinite possibilities for mischief, and that's before the archdeacon arrives to close the college and is found murdered in the chapel.

James unfolds this delicious plot with consummate skill, teasing her readers with half statements, hints and reported thought. Holding off the main murder until the middle of the book is a master-stroke, a gothic horror after the flat, sea-bleached mundanity of the first half. Though it seems that we are not yet to be spared Dalgliesh's singleton-ness, at least this is now balanced by Kate Miskin's career crisis, and there is more than enough detecting for the detectives here to distract them from their private lives. This will definitely please established fans of James' work, and seems likely to win her new acolytes too.

Masterly closed community mystery (10/11 people found this helpful)

P.D.James, it has to be said, is a writer of rare skill and quality. She doesn't just write murder mysteries, she writes literature, demonstrating a command of language, characterisation, and plot which few contemporaries can emulate. The mysteries are, on the surface, of the 'cosy' variety - respectable, not likely to frighten either the horses or the servants. Beneath the surface, she writes with a surgical ability to dissect human emotion, cognition and purpose and create a darker, more insightful unravelling of mystery. That cosy, embroidered silk cushion can become a brutal murder weapon.

"Death in Holy Orders" is a very English mystery. Set against a bleak, atmospheric East Anglian seascape and skyscape, this is a cerebral investigation into deaths within an enclosed, isolated, religious community. James's investigator - Dalgleish - faces a very claustrophobic task, but it's a claustrophobia the author uses and manipulates to heighten tension and keep the reader guessing.

And this is not simply a book you can enjoy because of the mystery - it's a book to enjoy because of the language, the slow pace, the intellectual pleasure of being guided through a maze. No glitz, no glamour, no outrageous special effects, no sensation, no gratuitous sex or violence or visceral exposition to hold your attention - the writing does that on its own. You know this is quality, that it is a beautifully crafted story; it's a mystery in which the pleasure is in the journey, not just the arrival.

Bored Rigid (1/6 people found this helpful)

A real struggle to get through this book. I tried to continue reading this yarn but found it so heavy & tedious that I was really glad to finish it. Why finish it? well I had to know ho done it & it was a b bit of an anticlimax. I do hope if I read anonther that I do not have to write such a negative review.
I also hope not too many readers bought the book on the strength of the author as I am sure as I was that they would wonder if they would ever read another!
Colin.

A "Polite" and very "civilized" murder mystery. (5/9 people found this helpful)

This is a quintessentially British mystery, old-fashioned, and reminiscent in plot style to Agatha Christie, with a murder and all the action taking place inside a closed community. One of the priests or ordinands within a small, remote, High Church seminary must have committed a murder, or two, or three. Commander Adam Dalgliesh, who spent several summers at St. Anselm's as a boy, returns to investigate the death of the young son of an extremely wealthy man, and in short order, additional deaths occur.

A Rogier van der Weyden altarpiece, a treasure trove of ecclesiastical silver, Pre-Raphaelite paintings, and other priceless art objects owned by the about-to-be-closed seminary, provide a possible financial motive for murder, while an incestuous relationship, a secret marriage, a paralyzing fear of the future, and even pedophilia by a much-loved priest are among the psychological motives.

Politeness and "civilized" behavior play a greater role here than they do in many, more "modern" mysteries. There is no graphic sex, no profanity, and no scenes of violence--just the effects of the violence. We see the priests and ordinands only within their circumscribed lives, and there are no scenes that suggest that any of them have any sense of humor or any real need for fun. Although James conveys enough psychological astuteness that her characters do not feel flat, there are at least eight or ten who could have committed the murder and for whom very substantial background information is given.

The reader must follow all of them, along with an equally large number of red herrings, for four hundred pages before the plot is resolved, somewhat anticlimactically. That, combined with maddeningly detailed, physical descriptions of the rooms of the seminary, made this a four-star experience for me, rather than five-star.

Death in Holy Orders

P.D. James

Reader Reviews:

Excellent (0/0 people found this helpful)

"It's not every day one experiences vicariously the excitement of murder." (1/1 people found this helpful)

Masterly closed community mystery (10/11 people found this helpful)

Bored Rigid (1/6 people found this helpful)

A "Polite" and very "civilized" murder mystery. (5/9 people found this helpful)

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