Reading the Detectives discussion

Welcome to our Buddy Read of The Private Patient the fourteenth, and last, in the Adam Dalgliesh series, published in 2008. Having come to the end of the series, it is interesting to consider that the series started back in 1962.

When the notorious investigative journalist, Rhoda Gradwyn, books into Mr. Chandler-Powell's private clinic in Dorset for the removal of a disfiguring, long-standing facial scar, she has every prospect of a successful operation by a distinguished surgeon, a week's peaceful convalescence in one of Dorset's most beautiful manor houses and the beginning of a new life. She will never leave Cheverell Manor alive. When Adam Dalgliesh and his team are called in to investigate the murder - and a second death occurs - even more complicated problems than the question of innocence or guilt arise.

Interested to hear your thoughts not only on this novel, but of the series overall.

Please do not post spoilers in this thread. Thank you.

Just opening this up for discussion as the weekend is almost here. We are now on to the very last Dalgliesh book, which, as Susan says in the introductory post, was 46 years after the first one!

Who is reading this? I'm about a third of the way through and am pleased to see that Kate and Benton feature again alongside Adam Dalgliesh.

I am about two thirds of the way through. PD James was fairly elderly writing this and I can't help feeling she is a little grumpy and out of sorts. Reminds me a little of Christie's later mysteries, where she moans about modern clothes and manners.

I’ve just finished this. I didn’t enjoy it much, it felt very muddled.

I’m very conflicted about this series. I found the plots rather up and down, some much better than others. Dalgliesh was a nightmare, so pompous and condescending, but I liked Kate, Piers and Benton Smith. The world James creates is often gloomy, all miserable childhoods and unfulfilled people with terrible secrets, but I still felt compelled to read on and find out what happened. Overall I’m glad I joined in for this series, I probably wouldn’t have continued without the group discussions.

Susan wrote: "I am about two thirds of the way through. PD James was fairly elderly writing this and I can't help feeling she is a little grumpy and out of sorts. Reminds me a little of Christie's later mysterie..."

So far, I definitely agree about James being grumpy - also, once again, all the police and the characters she approves of seem to share the author's political views and disapproval of various aspects of modern society!

I really liked some of the books - especially some of the earlier ones. Shroud for a Nightingale, A Mind to Murder. I think many of us agree there is just too much detail - every room described, steps, doors, passages... Nobody ever just leaves a room, they walk this way, touch this, look at a picture, ponder on a memory, lift a latch, feel the wind, comment on the trees. It becomes distracting and, at times, boring. The plots are often really good, but too much extraneous details slow them down.

I am also pleased I have read the series. I might re-read some in future, but I wouldn't read some of the books again.

Yes the details do slow the stories down. I found the food and drink ones in this book particularly irritating! Every meal from a cup of soup to the meals provided for Kate and Benton at their lodgings.

I'm just over a third of the way through, and as I predicted, we have yet again been told of Kate's hard childhood, and Benton's unloving, detached parents.

I do agree about there being too much detail, with all the room descriptions and pictures on the walls again. I'm just over halfway through now and Dalgliesh and Kate are looking around a victim's house - I had to giggle at this comment:

"He saw that it had been important to her, as it was to him, that books should neatly fit the height of the shelves."

He might like to see some neat bookshelves, but it's not important.

Judy wrote: "I do agree about there being too much detail, with all the room descriptions and pictures on the walls again. I'm just over halfway through now and Dalgliesh and Kate are looking around a victim's ..."

If books fit neatly into the shelves, there's no room to put more books on top of them!

I wonder if he also likes to see books sorted according to the colour of the cover.

I think there's a lot of PD James in these books.

I suspect she didn't like kindles...

Kindles? She doesn't even seem to allow paperbacks in her world, only leather-bound tomes - yuck! Which does also make me wonder how everyone's always read Dalgleish's poetry - I think of him as being published by the equivalent of Faber & Faber, not leather covers at all!

This kind of inherent snobbery really bugs me about the books.

Do we ever see any of Dalgleish's poetry? Is he modelled on Philip Larkin, or Pam Ayres?

There's a short poem of his in one of the earlier books - I'm not sure which book it was in now, though. Does anyone remember?

Do we actually get to see his poetry? I do remember someone, maybe Dalgleish himself, talking or thinking about a poem being inspired by the death, was it murder?, of a child.

He mused in The Lighthouse that murder inspired his poetry. It is worrying ...

Near the end of one of the early books, I'm sure he writes a slightly humorous love poem for a woman he is briefly involved with and the poem is included in full, but I can't find it.

Thing is, Dalgliesh is so prissy and fastidious that I just can't imagine him having the emotional capacity for full-blooded poetry.

I thought he seems to be a bit less fastidious in the later books in the series, though - less shrinking away from other people and worrying about everyday dust and dirt, even if he still has quirks like wanting bookshelves to be perfectly arranged.

Unnatural Causes at the end has one of his poems and there are a few lines in one of the later ones.

Thank you, Carolien - I thought it was in Unnatural Causes but couldn't find it when I looked.

Rosina wrote: "Do we ever see any of Dalgleish's poetry? Is he modelled on Philip Larkin, or Pam Ayres?"

Ha ha, love this! I know Dalgliesh always avoids book tours and other publicity (ugh, people!) but I’m imagining him at a reading with Pam Ayres now!

Overall, now we've completed the series, were you impressed or disappointed? Was it better than you thought, or worse? Did you have a clear favourite?

Overall I think I was disappointed, probably because I had such high expectations based on James’ reputation. Some of the books were much better than others - I would say my favourites were Shroud For A Nightingale and A Certain Justice, but even there I felt the endings were slightly weak. The destination was never as good as the journey for me. I’m glad I read the series though, they were good books for group discussion.

I think I feel the same, Pamela. I expected a lot. Shroud for a Nightingale stood out for me too, as well as a couple of other titles. Overall, she was probably important in making crime more 'literary' and respected as a genre and it was interesting to read her. Lots of deep thoughts and poetic musings for a detective, but I suppose Dalgliesh was never a run of the mill policeman, was he?

Dalgliesh was one of the problems for me. James obviously thought he was wonderful - I found him condescending, humourless and dull.

I was a bit disappointed too - I had high hopes because I really liked the two Cordelia Gray books we read last year, and also the first Dalgliesh book, Cover Her Face, but after that I felt the series was quite uneven.

There were still some great sections in some of the books, though. I think Cover Her Face is still my favourite, but I also liked The Lighthouse a lot, at the other end of the series.

I think uneven is a good description, Judy. There was lots that I liked, but other parts infuriated me - not least the constant description. I am not against description, or literary fiction, or literary mysteries. However, so often, the endless details bogged down scenes, plots and characters.

The first book I read was Shroud for a Nightingale back in 2011 and really liked it, making me determined to read more of the books, but these have been a big disappointment. As I have said about almost every book, the plots were well thought out, but they were spoilt by the never-ending descriptions of every fixture and fittings of all the locations, and the back story Miskin. I ended up not caring about the main characters, or how they ended up
I'm pleased I read them because now I know, had I never got to them , I would not have missed much.
I have 2 more books here The Children of Men and Innocent Blood. Whether I ever get to read them, I really don't know

I enjoyed the first handful, particularly A Mind to Murder and Shroud for a Nightingale though the latter had that silly ending.

But I came to seriously dislike the second half of the series for the way PDJ was on such a reactionary political soapbox. I also despised Dalgleish!

Apart from the dreadful bloated writing, I found the plotting holey - (view spoiler)[too many WW2 links, long confessions, hostage situations and/or sudden action heroics from Dalgleish - the police hardly ever seemed to make a successful arrest. (hide spoiler)]

I didn't like the first Cordelia Grey and DNF'd the second so, yes, an uneven experience for me too.

I feel the same as many do. I'm glad I read them because James can be an excellent writer (thinking of a storm scene in an early book) and is an acknowledged master. The plots and characters are well developed, though repetitive. But I will not miss having to spend time with Dalglish, whom I liked less with each book.

Part of the problem may be that we read the books one after another. Perhaps spreading them out over forty years, as they were published, might have worked better.

That's a good point, Sandy. It is unfair, perhaps, to judge them. Most people would have got them from the library, or bookshop, when they came out. Plots from previous books were less well remembered I am sure and the sameness of the setting would have been less obvious.

I'm reading Barchester Towers and have just read two chapters which describes in excruciating detail the interior and refurbishments required to a rectory and the interior and exterior of a local manor house. It makes James seem a paragon of brevity in comparison.

I agree that people who read the books as they appeared would have had a very different reading experience compared to our condensed version. Each book is basically structured the same - the first quarter or so introduces the suspects and motives, then the murder occurs, then there are chapters that introduces the investigation team. These are written with an assumption that there are some new readers, some previous readers who will have forgotten the stories of each team member as there has been up to a decade between books and brings a regular reader up to date with the latest personal developments. And then the investigation unfolds. The resolutions were often a bit contrived or unrealistic.

She definitely became more set in her opinions over time and that carried over into her characters. She was supposed to give detective novels a more literary flavor and I suspect the descriptions of places and architecture, etc were seen as part of that effort. Even the later novels have pages of it which gets tedious when you read the books monthly.

She did seem to mellow somewhat in the characters of her suspects. I battled to find a single character in some of the early books which I liked whereas later ones have some more sympathetic ones e.g. the chef and his wife in The Private Patient, Tally Clutton in The Murder Room, Mandy Price in Original Sin.

Shroud for a Nightingale was my favourite and then some others which I liked for particular aspects. Original Sin with London and Innocent House very much for the setting for instance.

Adam Dalgliesh was difficult to like, but then I also detested Peter Wimsey by the time we finished the Dorothy Sayers group read!

I'm glad we read them. Between my mother and myself we have two complete sets, so I will happily donate mine to the local charity shop and may reread some many years hence.

I think there is a lot of merit to our buddy read schedules which allows a bit more time between instalments - two/three months. There is progress, but also time to process.

I finally got round to reading this to complete the set. As others say, I found it a strange mixture of ideas & too much old-fashioned detail. The food! Almost every meal was like an elaborate dinner party. Even when someone was upset & just had soup there was sherry in it - didn’t anyone in her world just open a tin of soup like a normal person?! It was irritating & convoluted. (view spoiler)[But I was glad that there was some resolution of the ongoing stories about the main characters. (hide spoiler)]