The Private Patient
Friday, September 19th, 2008
Thank you Amazon for the picture
“At half past ten on that Saturday morning, Commander Adam Dalgliesh and Emma Lavenham had an appointment to meet her father. To meet a future father-in-law for the first time, especially with the purpose of informing him that one is shortly to marry his daughter, is seldom an enterprise undertaken without some misgivings.”
What makes a great mystery writer? Do you have to be paranoid? Maybe you see a potential murder everywhere you go. Well whatever the qualifications are I don’t have them. The biggest mystery that I will ever solve is; where did my car keys go? I think I will leave the big mystery solving to professionals like P.D. James who just so happens to be releasing her new book The Private Patient on November 18, 2008.
Cheverell Manor is a lovely old house in deepest Dorset, now a private clinic belonging to the famous plastic surgeon George Chandler-Powell. When investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn arrived there one late autumn afternoon, scheduled to have a disfiguring and long-standing facial scar removed, she had every expectation of a successful operation and a pleasant week recuperating.
Two days later she was dead, the victim of murder.
To Commander Adam Dalgliesh, who with his team is called in to investigate the case, the mystery at first seems absolute. Few things about it make sense. Yet as the detectives begin probing the lives and backgrounds of those connected with the dead woman—the surgeon, members of the manor staff, close acquaintances—suspects multiply all too rapidly. New confusions arise, including strange historical overtones of madness and a lynching 350 years in the past. Then there is a second murder, and Dalgliesh finds himself confronted by issues even more challenging than innocence or guilt.
P. D. James has gained an enviable reputation for creating detective stories of uncommon depth and intricacy, combined with the sort of humanity and perceptiveness found only in the finest novelists. The Private Patient ranks among her very best.
If you want great reading don’t hesitate to pick up a novel by James, she has a great gift for this genre her plots are deep and full of twists and turns right up until the very end. Her characters are both charming and believable; it’s hard to put one of her books down once you have started.
Happy Reading
Sarah