Review
From the book jacket: Combe Island off the Cornish coast has a bloodstained
history of piracy and cruelty but now, privately owned, it offers respite to
over-stressed men and women in positions of high authority who require privacy
and guaranteed security. But the peace of Combe is violated when one of the
distinguished visitors is bizarrely murdered. Commander Adam Dalgliesh is called
in to solve the mystery quickly and discreetly, but at a difficult time for him
and his depleted team. Dalgliesh is uncertain about his future with Emma
Lavenham, the woman he loves; Detective Inspector Kate Miskin has her own
emotional problems; and the ambitious Sergeant Francis Benton-Smith is worried
about working under Kate. Hardly has the team begun to unravel the complicated
motives of the suspects than there is a second brutal killing, and the whole
investigation is...
Beyond the Book
"The greatest mystery of all is the human heart, and that is the mystery with
which all good novelists are concerned."
Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park OBE, better known
as P. D. James, was born in 1920. Leaving school at 16 due to financial
hardships at home, she took a variety of jobs before joining the National Health
Service to support her family. She moved to the Civil Service in 1968 and
worked there until she retired to write full-time in 1979. She wrote her
first novel,
Cover Her Face, the first in the Adam Dalgliesh series, on
the train to and from work It was published in 1962
For a more complete biography of P.D. James and more quotes, please see this
week's...
