FREE: Death in Holy Orders by P.D. James - HC/DJ

mat: Hardcover
P. D. James is, without doubt, the greatest living mystery writer today. Bar none. "Death In Holy Orders", her latest Adam Dalglish offering, merely cements this fact - as if it needed it.
The body of a young ordinand is discovered, smothered by a collapse of sand, on the beach near St. Anselem's, a theological college on the lonely shores of East Anglia. Ironically, St. Anselem's was also a particularly important place in Dalglish's boyhood and, when he is called to investigate this shocking murder, his journey there represents in microcosm the disparity between the new England and the old, the former way of living butting heads with the new, a theme carried delicately throughout the book in many ways, including the characters and how they live and think.
Subsequently, two more murders are committed - the last a most gruesome, shocking dispatching taking place in the chapel of all places - and Dalglish calls in Kate Miskin and company to assist him in finding the perpetrator.
A new twist added here is the subtle romantic situation occurring in the background between Dalglish and one of the people staying at the college during the murders. The ending is more satisfying than "A Certain Justice" and I liked the fact that Ms. James alludes to Dalglish's feelings about the end of the matter written about in "Justice". He feels he failed, somehow, and these feelings make finding this latest killer an even more urgent matter - not only to stop him killing again, but to reassure Dalglish that justice does, indeed, come around more often than not.
A wonderful novel from a terrific writer.