For some reason, I rarely allow myself the luxury of reading books in a series one after the other, back to back. I don’t know why that is. I certainly don’t have anyone dictating my reading besides myself. I don’t even participate in a lot of buddy reads or book groups because I know that as soon as I have to read a book I immediately lose all interest in it. That is to say, my reading time is my own, and for once I acted like it. As I mentioned in my review of Cover Her Face, I started reading the second book in P.D. James’s Adam Dalgliesh series, A Mind to Murder, immediately after reading the first. It felt like the biggest indulgence, and I enjoyed every minute of it.
Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh is at an autumn sherry party given by his publishers in celebration of the third reprint of his first volume of poetry. I failed to mention in my review of Cover Her Face that as well as being an officer of the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard, he is also a poet. The fact gets a mention in that book when someone involved in the murder investigation upon being introduced to Dalgliesh asked him if he is Adam Dalgliesh the poet. Dalgliesh’s poetry writing does not play a part in that book, nor does it in this one except to place him across a square in London from Steen Psychiatric Clinic, the site of our murder.
The body of a woman has been discovered in the basement of the private clinic with a chisel through her heart and a carving made by one of the patients in art therapy resting across her chest. The victim, Miss Bolam, administrative officer of the clinic is not a well-liked person, which means just about everyone is a suspect. Still, this murder should be a cinch for someone of Dalgliesh’s calibre to solve. He has not yet had an unsolved case, a fact that I found very surprising when I came across it. Then I reminded myself that this is a work of fiction. It seems equally unbelievable that someone with Dalgliesh’s track record would—apparently, for the first time—doubt his ability to solve a case. I expect we are supposed to believe that a smartypants doctor from the clinic is most likely the murderer. But I found Dalgliesh’s doubts and his concern that the killer would strike again a bit contrived. Unless I missed something—always a possibility—there was no indication at that point that anyone else’s life was in danger. Of course, there is the possibility that we are just supposed to assume that Dalgliesh knows something, or at least suspects something, that we do not.
The next three paragraphs reveal something that happens at the end of Cover Her Face. I don’t reveal anything to do with the murder in that one, just something minor relating to Dalgliesh’s personal life. If you have not yet read Cover Her Face and would prefer to preserve your reading experience I would recommend skipping the next three paragraphs.
SPOILERS AHEAD! Consider yourself warned...
I may have been a bit hasty in saying that Dalgliesh’s career as a poet has nothing to do with the story except to put him conveniently close to the site of a murder. It also puts him in the way of Deborah Riscoe, who readers of Cover Her Face will recognise as the daughter at Martingale, the manor house where the parlour maid was murdered. At the end of that book, we were left with the distinct impression that Dalgliesh and Deborah fancied each other and perhaps something may have come of it had the circumstances been different. Well, here Dalgliesh gets his second chance. Deborah is working at Dalgliesh’s publisher, Hearne and Illingworth, doing shorthand, typing, and “general dogsbody,” as she puts it (16). They just get to talking when Dalgliesh receives a phone call from Scotland Yard. Dalgliesh excuses himself saying he won’t be a moment, but knowing that he won’t be returning to the party (18).
He did not see Deborah Riscoe again, and made no effort to find her. His mind was already on the job ahead and he felt that he had been saved, at best from a snub and, at worst, from folly. It had been a brief, tantalizing, inconclusive and unsettling encounter but, already, it was in the past. (20)
In a way, this brief insight into Dalgliesh’s personal life feels a bit tacked on. These glimpses into his yearning for a romantic partner quite literally bookend the main story line, the murder. But I think the intention here is to show that Dalgliesh only allows himself to “indulge his thoughts” when he isn’t occupied with the job (18). In Cover Her Face, it is only at the end of the book, after the murder has been solved and the murderer is in custody, that we get any indication of his interest in Deborah Riscoe as anything other than a suspect. We see the same pattern here, and I wonder if it continues throughout the series with Deborah and Dalgliesh crossing paths. It does seem a possibility with Deborah working for Dalgliesh’s publisher. I would love to see Dalgliesh progress and grow over the course of the series, and settle down with—if not Deborah—then someone else. Because as it stands, he does not seem to have much in his life besides the job and his writing. His first book of poetry appears to be a success, so there is always the possibility that he could write full-time when he retires from the Yard. But I don’t think that would be enough to keep the demons at bay. Because although he does not appear to dwell on the loss of his wife and son, he does give off the impression that he is just managing to keep is grief in check.
I am a great one for complaining about something and then completely skipping over the positive, which is what I fear I have done in this review. But I assure you, despite what felt to me like a contrived build up in tension by making Dalgliesh doubt his abilities, overall I really enjoyed this book. Set inside a private clinic with the suspects limited to the people inside the building at the time, this one feels a lot like another manor house mystery. Being situated in London, instead of in the countryside, it is different enough from the first book without completely taking us out of the safe confines of the closed circle mystery. I really loved that A Mind to Murder is set in October. The air is crisp. The nights are closing in. And there is something both unsettling and expectant about the month of Halloween. Anything could happen. October is my birth month, so I may be a tad biased. However, autumn just feels like the right time of year for these books to me. I took a glance a the third book in the series, Unnatural Causes, and found that it starts in October as well. Perhaps P.D. James was of the same mind.
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