Product Description

When the notorious investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn booked into Mr Chandler-Powell's private clinic in Dorset for the removal of a disfiguring and long-standing facial scar, she had 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 was never to leave Cheverell Manor alive. Dalgliesh and his team are called in to investigate the murder, and later a second death, which are to raise even more complicated problems than the question of innocence or guilt.A new detective novel by P. D. James is always keenly awaited and "The Private Patient" will undoubtedly equal the success of her worldwide bestseller "The Lighthouse". It displays the qualities which P. D. James' readers have come to expect: a masterly psychological and emotional richness of characterisation, a vivid evocation of place and a credible and exciting mystery. "The Private Patient" is a powerful work of contemporary fiction.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #124 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 416 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Given the astonishing length of the writing career of PD James (her first novel was published in 1962), it is perhaps not surprising that her work often consciously refers back to an earlier era of British crime writing -- but it's none-the worse for that. In fact, James' clever and affectionate reinventions of the devices and conventions of that era afford a particular pleasure -- as is the case with her latest, The Private Patient.

Uncompromising investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn has booked herself into the Chandler Powell private clinic in Dorset. She has decided to remove a disfiguring facial scar, and is looking forward to what she hopes will be a new life after the surgery. But Rhoda will not leave the clinical alive – she is killed. After her murder, Commander Adam Dalgliesh is summoned to investigate. As he begins to examine suspects, scene and motives, a second death occurs, and Dalgliesh finds himself faced with one of the most complex and challenging mysteries of his career.

In many ways, The Private Patient has the structure of a novel from the golden age of crime fiction, and James is well aware of the very best writing from that era (including Cyril Hare, who James succeeded as premier crime writer for her publisher, Faber). Needless to say, she freights in a very modern level of psychological investigation, more penetrating than that of her great predecessors. If the novel seems less initially engaging than other recent work by the author, there is perhaps a subtle agenda here: James is avoiding the more obvious reader-grabbing tactics to present a low-key investigation of character than she has chosen to deal with in recent books. If a little more patience is required than usual, the result of this understated approach pays dividends. And admirers of James (and her doughty detective Dalgliesh) will be prepared to be flexible for the pleasures of the cogently handled narrative here. --Barry Forshaw

About the Author
P. D. James was born in Oxford in 1920 and educated at Cambridge High School for Girls.From 1949 to 1968 she worked in the National Health Service and subsequently in the Home Office, first in the Police Department and later in the Criminal Policy Department.All that experience has been used in her novels.She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Royal Society of Arts and has served as a Governor of the BBC, a member of the Arts Council, where she was Chairman of the Literary Advisory Panel, on the Board of the British Council and as a magistrate in Middlesex and London.She has won awards for crime writing in Britain, America, Italy and Scandinavia, including the Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award.She has received honorary degrees from seven British universities, was awarded an OBE in 1983 and was created a life peer in 1991.In 1997 she was elected President of the Society of Authors. She lives in London and Oxford and has two daughters, five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Customer Reviews

A melange of love, murder and philosophy.
Very different but as compelling as ever. This time P D James gave her readers a frisson of contemporary fiction with her mind to murder. So much in this novel. Apart from a very unusual murder - well two murders - there are several sub plots and some fascinating characters bringing social comment, personal philosophies and of course troubled love lives and backgrounds. The author herself as usual inserts much comment about the state of education, the police and the justice system all hampered by targets and state interference. Long sentences finely crafted with beautiful prose and several new words to look up in the dictionary make this an intriguing study. Benton-Smith brings a dash of spirit, sometimes over enthusiasm, whilst Kate Miskin is cool and calm as ever, a little over cautious perhaps. AD - what can one say? Charming - but not much emphasis on his poetry this time. I suppose all authors feel it incumbent upon them to include some jargon - moral compass? Not sure this was anything more than a bit of infilling and carbon footprint is becoming too repetitive. Not sure of the rape scene either. It didn't lead me anywhere. That apart - and they're such small criticisms - I think this is James at her full strength. Why do I feel this might be AD's last case? I hope not. If you miss this it will be your loss.

A disappointment
Same old dated backdrop and a collection of cold fish characters, who lack passion and emotion to such a degree they come across as cardboard characters. Dalgleish is joyless and too controlled. Give me a detective with a dash of humanity and its flaws! I didn't grasp the solution to the murders but had ceased to care by that stage of the book. The prose is superb though and on several occasions I did pause simply to savour a particularly clever or poetic comment or turn of phrase.

A Beautiful Curiosity
P D James has always been a great stylist. She writes with a beautifully unfussy elegance; her characters are always given depth and her descriptions of landscapes and buildings display a rare gift for the telling detail and the striking metaphor, but in this, her latest work, the detail and the fine writing somehow take centre-stage at the expense of the plot. The murder mystery - the death of the investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn while staying in a private clinic - is almost incidental to the descriptions of the gothic pile in which the sinister events take place, the people inside the building and the haunting circle of stones just outside the grounds. It's a curious state of affairs, especially when one considers that the murder mystery is essentially solved without too much of an input from Dalgliesh and his colleagues.

And yet, for all the strangeness of a murder mystery in which the solving of the murder is almost an incidental concern, this is an excellent novel. James is brilliant at portraying human beings in all their messy, confused, emotionally bewildered complexity. Rhoda Gradwyn isn't at all likeable, and yet the scene in which Dalgleish has to break the news of Gradwyn's murder to her mother is incredibly moving. Commander Dalgleish himself always remains, in public, the model of quiet control and authority and yet the news that his fiance has recently seen an old flame sends him tumbling into the realms of jealousy and self-doubt. No one is portrayed in black and white, everyone is a shade of grey.

I've read most of James' books and I've always found them thought-provoking, beautifully written and enjoyable. They make fabulous comfort-reading, the sort of books one reads over the Christmas holidays, and I always come away from her books with a renewed affection for Dalgleish and an increased regard for James' qualities as a writer. I suspect The Black Tower will always be my favourite among her novels, simply because it is one of the most beautifully sustained reflections on the fragility and beauty of life that I have ever read, but each of her novels offers something to admire and The Private Patient is no exception. Forget the almost incidental nature of the crime's solution and instead just wallow in a masterclass of character, atmosphere and descriptive writing. P D James is one of our best writers and while I wish she had broken out of the crime genre a little more often (I wish she had written a ghost story because with her gifts for conveying an unsettling atmosphere I'm sure it would have been superb) I still look forward to each new novel from her in a way I rarely do for other authors. Buy a copy, settle in for a few winter nights and enjoy.