Just recently I have been rediscovering Josephine Tey and I had forgotten what a wonderful writer she was. It is difficult to convey the sheer pleasure of such lucid, elegant and seamless prose which makes reading such a joy. It is no surprise that after this rediscovery I decided to return to another writer whose writing falls into the same category as Tey, the kind of writing which flows, seemingly so easily, not a extraneous verb, adverb, comma or full stop.
I came late to PD James, picking up one of her books at a book fair for 50p years ago and thinking that it looked interesting. It was A Taste for Death and opened with the discovery of two bodies in a church in London, both with their throats cut, one of them being a Cabinet Minister who had recently resigned from the Government. So an intriguing premise.
I should have read the books in order but I never do, I just grab them when I see them but last week I read her first Dalgliesh Cover her Face (if I remember rightly this is a quote from the Duchess of Malfi and Agatha Christie uses it in Sleeping Murder. I am just showing off here.....).
This title was published in 1962 and it has dated somewhat with class distinction a central theme. The victim, Sally Jupp, is an unmarried mother and, of course, back then such a person was regarded as a pariah. While I feel PD James wants to feel sympathy with her she does portray Sally as a sly manipulative piece of work and her murder hardly comes as a surprise. But this was the first in the Dalgliesh series and as the author became more certain of her ground and her characters they grow and expand.
A Certain Justice was next. Venetia Aldridge, QC is a distinguished barrister with a knack of arousing dislike in her colleagues and friends. Her fierce drive to be the best and her ambition has led to an estrangement from her daughter and conflict with her fellow barristers in Chambers. On the retirement of the current Head of Chambers, Venetia will take over, an event that is not greeted with any joy by Dyysdale Laud, who thinks it should be him, by the Clerk Harold Naughton who Venetia wish to be rid of and replace with an office manager, by the timid secretary who Venetia despises and other colleague who wish her ill. Venetia's intolerance and impatience with them all is exacerbated by the crisis with her daughter Olivia who has become engaged to a young man, Ashe, who Venetia has just defended in a murder case. He was acquitted because of her brilliant defence but it is clear that he is guilty. For the first time in her life Venetia is powerless to act. No surprise then that she is the victim.
The Private Patient was the last Dalgliesh and I think it is one of her best.
Rhoda Gradwyn is an investigative journalist, who has booked into a private clinic for the removal of a disfiguring scar on her face, inflicted upon her by a drunken father during her unhappy childhood. She has kept this scar as a badge of her determination not to let life defeat her, but now feels it is time to rid herself of this unsightly mark and to face up to her past. She is looking forward to a successful operation and a convalescence at the beautiful manor house in Dorset which is the clinic's headquarters.
Her operation takes place, all is well and she settles down to sleep in her bedroom. In the middle of the night she awakes, she knows somebody is in the room and looking up she sees a dark masked figure coming towards her....
Dalgliesh and his team are called in and there follows the usual complex, beautifully plotted narrative which leads us to a denouement which is not quite the end of the story, as there is an added twist in the final chapter which is not totally cleared up, leaving the reader to wonder.
I remember posting on this some years ago and highlighted this paragraph which is so beautifully descriptive and made me feel in great sympathy with Rhoda and I insert it here again with no apology for so doing:
"Eight years ago she had taken a lease on a house in the City, part of a narrow terrace in a small courtyard at the end of Absolution Alley near Cheapside, and knew as soon as she moved in that this was the part of London in which she would always choose to live........many generations had lived in it, born and died there leaving behind nothing but their names on browning and archaic leases.........although the lower rooms with their mullioned windows were dark, those in her study and sitting room on the top storey were open to the sky, giving a view of the towers and steeples of the City....an iron staircase led from a narrow balcony to secluded roof which held a row of terracotta pots and where on fine Sunday mornings she would sit with her books or newspapers as the Sabbath calm lengthened into midday and the early peace was broken only by the familiar peals of the City bells"
I found myself liking Rhoda, probably because I too find it essential to find time to myself and to be on my own. We are given the background to Rhoda's life and how she was scarred; her friends, not many, she was essentially solitary person, her desire to finally come to terms with her disfigurement. Not necessarily an immediately lovable character but PD James tells us enough about her that we feel sadness that her life came to a sudden end and, what is worse, knowing in her last few minutes, that this was it, this was death coming towards her....
Brilliant.
In the last two weeks I have read Death of an Expert Witness, Death in Holy Orders and have now embarked on The Lighthouse. It has been so long since I read them that I had actually forgotten the identity of the murderer though a glimmer of memory towards the end of one of them alerted me. One I had so forgotten it was a wonderful surprise to discover Who Dun It if that is an appropriate description. Perhaps not...
I still have another eight or nine to re-read and am looking forward to enjoying them all over again. Today is a windy, wind and leaf swept autumn day and is just perfect for staying indoors, keeping warm and reading.
