The Lighthouse
P.D. James


The publication of a new Commander Dalgleish novel is always cause for celebration, and I was delighted when I learned that there was a new P.D. James novel being published this fall. Baroness James of Holland Park may be eighty-five years old now, but she is certainly at the top of her game, and this is probably the best Dalgleish novel which I have ever read (and I have read them all). Every sentence is elegant, taut and exquisitely crafted, and the author's creative powers in the areas of characterization, plot structure and setting are undiminished. This novel is a gem.

In "The Lighthouse", Commander Adam Dalgleish and his investigating team, including the remarkable Inspector Kate Miskin, are summoned to a remote Cornish island to investigate the death of a well-known writer who was in residence. The island is a small community, and theirs is a delicate task requiring great circumspection, for Combe Island is now a secluded retreat for weary government mandarins and captains of industry, and media attention must be avoided at all costs.

Dalgleish and his colleagues are far from their home territory and the investigating facilities which they are accustomed to having at their disposal, and they are compelled to rely almost entirely on their remarkable powers of observation and analysis to solve the crime. A second resident of the island will be murdered before the facts of the case are untangled, and Dalgleish himself will fall victim to an illness which comes close to killing him. As he is wandering around the small island and interrogating its residents, the future of his relationship with the beautiful Emma Lavenham is very much on his mind - the murder will be resolved of course, and so will Dalgleish's romance.

This book simply cannot be labeled a thriller, for it journeys far beyond the narrow and well-traveled terrain of the mystery novel, and it rightfully belongs within the heady realm of high literature.