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.
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.
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.
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.
"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 quote.
The nineth Inspector Ian Rutledge mystery, set in Post-World War I England. Rutledge is called on to prove the innocence of a man he dislikes and distrusts. But the deadly triangle also stirs up memories of the woman he himself loved and lost when he went to France to fight.
When Eugenie Davies is killed by a driver on a quiet London street, her death is clearly no accident. Someone struck her with a car and then deliberately ran over her body before driving off, leaving nothing behind but questions.
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Stranger than fiction, blending tragedy and farce, How to Create the Perfect Wife is an engrossing tale of the radicalism, and deep contradictions, at the heart of the Enlightenment.
Z, the novel about the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is at points charming and; like another reviewer, I kept thinking of the movie, "Midnight...
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Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on...
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Loved this book. Magical, quirky, enchanting I could go on. All books do not have to be literary fiction, sometimes it is just so comforting to read...
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U.S. ebook sales up in 2012, but rate of growth is slowing(May 16 2013) In 2012, trade book sales (i.e. non academic book sales) rose 6.9%, to $15.049 billion, and e-book sales continued to grow, although the rate of growth...
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