Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14797 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-06
• Binding: Paperback
• 528 pages

Synopsis
Two men lie in a welter of blood in the vestry of St Matthew's Church, Paddington, their throats brutally slashed. One is Sir Paul Berowne, a baronet and recently resigned Minister of the Crown, the other an alcoholic vagrant. Dalgliesh and his team, set up to investigate crimes of particular sensitivity, are faced with a case of extraordinary complexity as they discover the Berowne family's veneer of prosperous gentility conceals ugly and dangerous secrets.

Customer Reviews

From the back cover.....
In the small vestry of St Matthew's, Paddington, two bodies lie in a welter of blood, their throats cut with gaping precision. One is a local tramp, the other an ex-Minister of State. Adam Dalgliesh finds himself faced with the most confused and convoluted case of his career. Why was Sir Paul Berowne sleeping in this dingy vestry shortly before his death?

* The narrator, MICHAEL JAYSTON, is a highly regarded actor, having appeared in numerous films, among them ZULU DAWN and CROMWELL. He has also taken major roles in such television productions as JANE EYRE and QUILLER. His stage credits include EQUUS and THE WAY OF THE WORLD.

p d james at her very best
I have always loved p d James books and would rate them very highly. This book has taken her to a new stratoshere in the genre of crime writing. It has a beautiful prosse, well rounded characters and a top class whodunnit. I loved the plotline. How could a top MP and a tramp both end up with their throats cut in a london church? we are drawn into the whys and wherefores from page one and there are fabulous sub plots which touch at the heartstrings, Detective Kate Miskin and her humble upbringing is an example. She has risen from a council high rise flat to become a top detective and still she has her doubts as to where she really fits in to the team inveatigating the double murder. the ending is both poignant and surprising. What more can you ask from a high class whodunnit?

Overlong, humourless, unreadable
Tedious beyond believe, every paragraph proclaiming, 'THIS IS A REAL NOVEL, NOT A MERE DETECTIVE YARN.' An intriguing enough mystery has been entirely ruined by 'fine' writing and an over-abundance of 'psychological insights'. The novel collapses under its own weight. It falls between two stools -- tiresome both as crime and straight novel. No one in the end could possibly care whodunit. Incredible that it got the Gold Dagger -- it must have been a terrible year for detective novels.