Blowin' In The Wind What have I learnt today? Blogging about blogs, books, media, Internet, world today and a family of three in three countries Main July 29, 2006 PD James and The Lighthouse I just finished reading PD James' latest mystery, The Lighthouse, which came out last year. And I must admit I am a little disappointed. Not that I would have missed it for anything in the world. PD James is too good a writer to ever really let down her readers. The writing is as assured as ever, picturesque, elegant, smooth, the sentences beautifully constructed, unblemished by split infinitives like the one I used in the previous sentence. This is British writing almost at its very best, in the tradition of Graham Greene, quiet, understated, and yet vivid and seamless. Once I picked up this book, it was impossible to put down. Commander Adam Dalgliesh, the Scotland Yard detective who has come a long way since he appeared in James' first novel, Cover Her Face, in 1962, is called upon to investigate the mysterious death of a famous novelist on a little island off the coast of Cornwall. There are only a handful of people on the island, which is privately owned and does not admit strangers. So the murderer cannot be an outsider. That makes it like an Agatha Christie mystery. And, like Christie, James profiles each of the suspects, their background and motivations, in considerable detail. | |
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