The latest Adam Dalgleish novel, The Private Patient, is published in paperback by Penguin on 24 September. It’s P.D. James’ 18th novel, and I read and enjoyed it upon publication last year. Apparently, it was a ‘top five bestseller in hardback’. I’m never quite sure about the definition of ‘bestseller’. I can even recall seeing promotional literature which has referred to a couple of my books as bestsellers, which in all honesty does require a bit of an imaginative leap. But one thing is for sure, P.D. James is genuinely a Premier League crime writer, and her sales must put her close to the top of any table.
The key figure in the book is Rhoda Gradwyn, a notorious investigative journalist. Her face is scarred, and as the blurb correctly, if rather melodramatically, puts it, the scar ‘was to be the death of her’. She checks into a private clinic for cosmetic surgery, only to meet her Maker in rather grim circumstances.
Rhoda is one of those characters whose life and behaviour provide plenty of people with reason to kill her. By detective fiction standards, she is a natural victim. This book was one of those that I covered in my recent paper at the St Hilda’s conference, dealing with ‘sinful victims’. Sinful victims, as I tried to show, are a staple of the genre, although I very much enjoy those books where the victim is apparently so blameless that there is a real mystery as to who would wish to kill them. Playing games with human motivation is one of the great challenges for whodunit writers, I think. The aim nowadays must be to come up with a solution to the game that does not defy credibility, and treats the players in the game as believable human beings.
P.D. James is very good at this, I think. The Private Patient is not by any means her best book (my choice would be Devices and Desires), and there are some parts of the closing section which I struggled with, but it’s nevertheless an excellent read. An incidental pleasure for me came with her references in the story-line to the late, great Cyril Hare, in whose footsteps she followed when she first signed up with Faber and Faber – which, remarkably, was not all that far short of half a century ago.
Monday 7 September 2009
P.D. James and Victims
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8 comments:
Quite so. I too am unsure about definitions. In my case "paperback", as the trade paperback (is that what they're called? same size as the hardback but paperbacked) has been out for months!
I enjoyed the book, too. In some ways, it seemed more old-fashioned than others of her books. I stumbled over the ending a little, myself, though. The murder scene scared the dickens out of me...I read it at night.
Elizabeth
Mystery Writing is Murder
Hi Tim, this is the mass market paperback (quite a chunky volume, all the same.)
Elizabeth, I agree, the murder scene is definitely memorable!
I've just bought the Faber and Faber paperback at a motorway service station as one of the"Buy 1 Get 1 Half Price" books. I am totally ignorant about what is a "trade paperback" and a "mass market paperback"! The one I bought is hardback size but a paperback - whatever it is I'm looking forward to reading it.
I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy it, BP. Sounds like a trade paperback, but publisher-speak is a mysterious lingo with rules of its own.
I enjoyed this, too. There is no one more skilful than James at creating a closed institution and peopling it with characters whose complicated relationships guarantee someone is going to die - shortly followed, of course, by someone else.
I agree that Devices and Desires is one of her best. It made a wonderfully unsettling Radio 4 late night serial some years ago (when Radio 4 still did such things). This was because of the malign presence of the Norfolk Whistler. (This one is not, Antipodeans please note, a wildly-blown-off-course Pachycephala pectoralis. Oh dear me, no: a Jamesian Whistler is a far, far different bird). 'Now the Day is Over' is at the top of my list of Tunes I Hope Never To Hear Behind Me In A Lonely Lane At Night...
Incidentally, 'the references in the story-line to the late, great Cyril Hare', left me with mixed reactions. Good to see him acknowledged, of course; but if I remember aright 12 months on, doesn't PDJ give away a key plot device of one of Hare's books? I'm surprised the Detection Club hasn't sent in the butler to direct her to the study 'where, m'lady, you will find the whisky and the revolver within easy reach. And, of course, there is an envelope addressed to the coroner on the writing-pad. The footman will deliver it by hand as soon as, um - well, when required'.
Thanks very much for these comments, Myfanwy. I wish I'd heard that radio adaptation. I take your point about the Hare references, though I was just so pleased to see that his work was addressed by name in a bestseller - I hope it provokes more interest in his work.
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