Cover Her Face: An Adam Dalgliesh Mystery (Adam Dalgliesh Mysteries Book 1)

As always I am aware I'm reviewing a book written a while ago, in different times. I was alive in those times, and I found it interesting to compare my view of those times as a young American adult, to that of an old British lady.The mysteries and clues, and closed room, fancy British peer system remnants made for interesting reads. James treated the modern world respectfully, the church was very much a factor for most characters, but not so much the protagonist. Top notch mysteries.But the social aspects was what made it interesting. For me, book 8 really diverted from the pattern. Set in 1988, it got old person yelling at clouds preachy instead of tolerant of newer cultural changes.SPOILER BITS The crazy killer was a crossdresser. AD starts dumping on the youth, as morally vacant for how they dance, one character goes on and one about "White people are the real victims of racism, and I should be able to ignore their preferences, because I mean well in my heart!"Again, it was the times. But it was still disappointing to see a previously vaguely tolerant author slip into this insidious nonsense. I hate to see this kind of casual cruelty slip into my cozy British mysteries.

Published originally in 1962, "Cover Her Face," is P.D. James' first mystery introducing Detective Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh to be later covered during the late 1990's in the PBS "Mystery!" series with splendid performances by Roy Marsden as the lead. This story is very much an English set piece mystery with a passing nod to "locked door" puzzles popular in the tradition of Arthur Conant Doyle, Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr and, later, Inspectors Morse and Lewis.The events of this tale unfold at Martingale, the country home of the Maxies, surrounded by various friends, household staff and other characters from neighboring towns such as Chadfleet New Town and convenient for visits to London proper. All is not harmony in this hamlet: Simon Maxie is on the verge of dying due to old age or associated illnesses; Eleanor Maxie is ever watchful and attentive to her husband's remaining needs; their adult children, Deborah and Stephen, are entangled in unfulfilling or unrequited relationships; several others are at an opening dinner where the entire group "had dined together too often to expect either novelty or stimulation from each other's company."But hold on a minute! In their midst is a new staff member, Sally Jupp, with her out-of-wedlock newborn son, Johnny. A mischief-maker if ever there was one, Sally has possible designs, it would seem, on just about everybody. At the major Martingale mid-summer charity event Sally appears unexpectedly in a dress very much like the one Deborah is wearing and, as she ascends the staircase to her bedroom that evening, announces to everyone's surprise Stephen and she are engaged...By next morning Sally has moved beyond these earthly confines, though quite obviously not according to her plan, and left little Johnny Jupp to jump for himself. And so enters Scotland Yard's Adam Dalgliesh to sort through the various stories and figure out what's going on.Along the way, P.D. James provides some real gems of sardonic send ups: for example, Dalgliesh who "merely craved simple English food properly cooked," is served by a Mrs. Piggot at the local Moonraker's Arms tavern among other delicacies a soup "thick enough to support the spoon unaided,...as startling to the palate as to the eye." For the main course among the legumes are "tinned peas larger and shinier than any peas which had ever seen pod." And dessert is tartly presented as an apple and black current pie "in which neither of the fruits had met each other nor pastry until they had been arranged on the plate by Mrs. Piggot's careful hand and liberally blanketed with synthetic custard."Possibly skewering her own industry in another section, James characterizes a book group as "Select Books catered for that class of reader which likes a good story without caring much who writes it, prefers to be spared the tedium of personal choice, and believes that a bookcase of volumes equal in size and bound in exactly the same color gives tone to any room." The wit of this observation calls to mind the libraries of Jane Austin's early nineteenth century England in which James has set her latest work, "Murder Comes to Pemberley" (which I have reviewed in its Amazon location).It is entertainment neatly packaged, delightful to curl up with a cup of something warm while traveling even if it's no further than to and from your favorite armchair.

The books in this series are intelligently written. The stumbling block is that most of the characters are unlikeable, but on the other hand it makes it easy to suspect everyone. It takes a while to get to like Dalgliesh, but eventually he gets somewhat more agreeable. The pacing is good and the settings vary nicely from book to book. One drawback is that PD James In all her novels can't visualize a decent person. They don't exist in her world, but I enjoyed reading this series anyway due to the quality of the writing.

Boring

Very intricately painted mystery. P.D. James expansive descriptions, dialog, and the thesaurus vocabulary will mark this first writing as memorable. Agatha Christy could not have told the story finer.

The supreme joy of reading is to discover a new author with the talent to not only to transport you to an undiscovered world but with the skill and imagination necessary to teach one new lessons about the real world and one's place in it. Having so discovered P.D. James' talent, I have commenced to read her work from start to finish.Nothing betrays an author's intent and goals so much as the difference between the first novel and the latest novel. Some are trapped in themes and characters that never diverge from their initially successful iterations. Others reach a plateau; their masterpieces are regrettably followed by the mediocre results of the now-powerful author's ability to disregard the pleas of editors. Having recently read "A Certain Justice" I knew that I had to see where James began."Cover Her Face" is as British as anything I have read. A distrust of new ways, respect for tradition, a rewarding of virtues and punishment of vices. The mystery develops nicely with an immediate great house full of suspects. The characters are finely drawn, believable and the author has the confidence to leave the reader to follow the characters without providing every internal thought. To say more is to risk spoiling the mystery. Suffice it to say that this book lays a firm foundation for the good Inspector Dalgliesh and reaches a conclusion that as with all good mysteries does not betray itself untimely but which makes perfect sense in the end.

My DH knows when I love a book as I have a tendency to grab my phone and read that book any time I get a chance, even while cooking. Couldn't put this down and loved the writing style. I had watched the Dalgliesh mysteries on Acorn and decided to read the first book of the series. The book was even better than the TV show. I will be reading the next book in the series.

Cover Her Face is the first book in a murder mystery series following Detective Adam Dalgleish. The murder takes place at a country house and has a very Christie vibe to it, which is my prefered sort of mystery. In comparison to the recent mysteries I've been reading, The Agatha Raisin series and Daisy Dalrymple books, it is glaringly obvious that P. D. James is a much better writer. The writing alone has the ability to pull you into the book and keeps everything flowing beautifully. However, the reason that it gets the same rating as those books is that the character of the detective is lacking. Had this been a stand-alone I would not have paid much attention, but knowing that there are a whole host of books following Dalgleish is very confusing to me. I loved this book but I could not tell you a single character trait of Dalgleish. The final few pages seemed to be trying to rectify this but it felt a bit out of place by that point. That said I am looking forward to reading more from this series and this author, and hope that Dalgleigh gets a bit more to do in the future.

Bearing in mind that I an mid-way through this book (p151/270 or 56%) I have to say that I’m not really enjoying it. It isn’t bad, but nor is it particularly good either.Inspector Dalglish is a non-entity so far and the many and various characters introduced up to know are somewhat confusing. What doesn’t help is the style in which the story is written, several words I had to look up in order to establish their meaning.For me, one incredibly irritating feature of the writing is when the characters are “thinking”. Who but a youngster would write “S thought ...”, “T thought ...”, “W thought ...”, “X thought ...”. What about varying things slightly - eg “whilst he sipped his tea, Z wondered if it could possibly be ...”. Making a story interesting to read should be something that an author strives for surely, not simply offering repetition after repetition?I can only hope that the second half of the book is better than the first half. I know that P. D. James went on to become a very successful author, but so far into this novel (the first of hers that I’ve read), I’m wondering why.3/5 stars seems appropriate for an “average” story with “average” writing. I may revisit this review if my opinion changes - here’s hoping it is for the better!

Sally Jupp is an unmarried mother whom have been taken on as a maid by the Maxie family. When Sally is murdered Adam Dalgleish is called in. He soon discovers that Sally wasn't particularly liked and she was not what she seemed.This is the book that introduced us to Adam Dalgleish and P D James has written a novel that drew me in from the get go. The characters seemed real and the story believable.Highly recommended.

I only got as far as the first 40 pages or so, and felt life draining out of me so had to stop. At this point there has yet to be any crime or sight of any detectives, just scene-setting, which to too dull to bear any longer. Unbelievably boring and stodgy. I can't believe this was ever published! Sorry, too stale for me.

I had heard so much about this author , including a programme on her Great life on the series on Radio 4 podcasts ( which I recommend highly) and her character Chief Inspector Dalgliesh that I thought I had to give this book a read.It's not the best detective novel I have read and the famed character of Dalgliesh didn't come jumping out of the pages at me. This is the first novel of the series and maybe this is a character that matures and grows on you. The book was well written with nice convoluted character plots which kept up the interest so I will carry on reading the series in sequence and find out what all the fuss is over this detective!