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 jeopardized when Dalgliesh is
faced with a danger more insidious and as potentially fatal as murder.
Book Reviews
Publishers Weekly
The solution.... is less than fully satisfactory and also borrows elements from some of James's recent plots. Devotees more interested in her hero's personal growth than his deductive technique will find much to enjoy.
Kirkus Reviews
Although the story is briefer than James's recent double-deckers, readers will still revel in her matchless fullness of characterization. A stay on Combe Island really is tonic.
Booklist - Bill Ott
Starred Review. It's what happens between the lines that gives James' stories their punch.... Each new Dalgleish novel should be treated as a gift by mystery fans everywhere.
The New York Times - Janet Maslin The Lighthouse is too rooted in genre conventions to count originality as
its strong suit. But it has deviousness to burn, and it also offers other
enticements. It's the kind of book that boasts a wryly humorous Scrabble scene,
not to mention a Scrabble-lover's vocabulary: Ms. James makes ready use of words like abseil, belay, symphysis and meiosis. It's a book that serves up figurative
red herring as well as melon balls in orange sauce. Not a menu goes unmentioned
... it is a sturdy installment in a well-honed series, which is a concept that
even its characters understand.
Times Literary Supplement
James's gifts animate and transform the armature into something exceptional. Her disciplined conventions, her observation of social and class niceties, renew the traditional Franco-British drama of domestic crime. She is a very superior writer of detection.
The Daily Express
James has proven that she deserves her reputation as our leading 'literary'
crime writer. The Lighthouse confirms that she is also the most
enjoyable.
The Globe & Mail
An elegant and perceptive writer - rich drifts of prose pile up on the page,
descriptive passages are Dickensian in length, ornament and power.... James's
many fans will relish The Lighthouse, for all its poise and narrative
familiarity.
The Toronto Sun
With her trademark blend of subtle characterization, vivid sense of place and deceptively simple plot, James pulls off another triumph. A beautifully written page-turner from the queen of the genre.
One of the most celebrated writers of our time gives us his first cycle of short fiction: five brilliantly etched, interconnected stories in which music is a vivid and essential character.
In her most accomplished novel, Barbara Kingsolver takes us on an epic journey from the Mexico City of artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo to the America of Pearl Harbor, FDR, and J. Edgar Hoover. The Lacuna is a poignant story of a man pulled between two nations as they invent their...
The acclaimed author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude returns with a roar with this gorgeous, searing portrayal of Manhattanites wrapped in their own delusions, desires, and lies.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author— "an immensely gifted writer and a magical prose stylist" (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times)—offers his first major work of nonfiction, an autobiographical narrative as inventive, beautiful, and powerful as his acclaimed, award-winning fiction.
Like Robin Hood, Zorro is a story that almost everyone knows, but few have read. The original book by Johnston McCulley is out of print and ...
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The 2009 National Book Award Winners(Nov 19 2009) The winners of the 2009 National Book Awards have been announced at the National Book Foundation's 60th National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit...
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