letrouvere's Full Review: P. D. James - Death in Holy Orders: An Adam Dalgli...
Death in Holy Orders is the seventeenth book by British mystery author P. D. James. Its main character, Commander Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard, is familiar to readers of some of James’s previous novels. In this particular novel, Dalgliesh visits a High-Church Anglican seminary to investigate the possibly mysterious death of a seminarian who was the son of an extremely wealthy businessman. A clergyman is murdered during Dalgliesh’s visit, and other police are brought in to conduct a full-scale murder investigation. The suspects include four priests, five seminarians, and several people who work for the seminary in various capacities. The characters are sufficiently numerous that I found it a little difficult to remember who they all were. As an example, when later in the book another character was found dead, I did not immediately know who she was. Also, the characters tend to be more like cardboard figures than fully delineated individuals. It was hard for me to be more than indifferent to most of the characters.
Ultimately the murderer’s identity is revealed. The motivation for the acts seemed quite unconvincing.
James has a good prose style, and one could say that every paragraph in the book is well written. The book was not an unpleasant read for me; it just was not very satisfying.
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