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Adam Dalgliesh #1
Cover Her Face
Headstrong and beautiful, the young housemaid Sally Jupp is put rudely in her place, strangled in her bed behind a bolted door. Coolly brilliant policeman Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard must find her killer among a houseful of suspects, most of whom had very good reason to wish her ill.
Cover Her Face is P. D. James's electric debut novel, an ingeniously plotted mystery that immediately placed her among the masters of suspense.
Audio CD
First published January 1, 1962
About the author
P.D. James
248 books3,088 followersP. D. James, byname of Phyllis Dorothy James White, Baroness James of Holland Park, (born August 3, 1920, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England—died November 27, 2014, Oxford), British mystery novelist best known for her fictional detective Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard.
The daughter of a middle-grade civil servant, James grew up in the university town of Cambridge. Her formal education, however, ended at age 16 because of lack of funds, and she was thereafter self-educated. In 1941 she married Ernest C.B. White, a medical student and future physician, who returned home from wartime service mentally deranged and spent much of the rest of his life in psychiatric hospitals. To support her family (which included two children), she took work in hospital administration and, after her husband’s death in 1964, became a civil servant in the criminal section of the Department of Home Affairs. Her first mystery novel, Cover Her Face (1962), introduced Dalgliesh and was followed by six more mysteries before she retired from government service in 1979 to devote full time to writing.
Dalgliesh, James’s master detective who rises from chief inspector in the first novel to chief superintendent and then to commander, is a serious, introspective person, moralistic yet realistic. The novels in which he appears are peopled by fully rounded characters, who are civilized, genteel, and motivated. The public resonance created by James’s singular characterization and deployment of classic mystery devices led to most of the novels featuring Dalgliesh being filmed for television. James, who earned the sobriquet “Queen of Crime,” penned 14 Dalgliesh novels, with the last, The Private Patient, appearing in 2008.
James also wrote An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972) and The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982), which centre on Cordelia Gray, a young private detective. The first of these novels was the basis for both a television movie and a short-lived series. James expanded beyond the mystery genre in The Children of Men (1992; film 2006), which explores a dystopian world in which the human race has become infertile. Her final work, Death Comes to Pemberley (2011)—a sequel to Pride and Prejudice (1813)—amplifies the class and relationship tensions between Jane Austen’s characters by situating them in the midst of a murder investigation. James’s nonfiction works include The Maul and the Pear Tree (1971), a telling of the Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811 written with historian T.A. Critchley, and the insightful Talking About Detective Fiction (2009). Her memoir, Time to Be in Earnest, was published in 2000. She was made OBE in 1983 and was named a life peer in 1991.
The daughter of a middle-grade civil servant, James grew up in the university town of Cambridge. Her formal education, however, ended at age 16 because of lack of funds, and she was thereafter self-educated. In 1941 she married Ernest C.B. White, a medical student and future physician, who returned home from wartime service mentally deranged and spent much of the rest of his life in psychiatric hospitals. To support her family (which included two children), she took work in hospital administration and, after her husband’s death in 1964, became a civil servant in the criminal section of the Department of Home Affairs. Her first mystery novel, Cover Her Face (1962), introduced Dalgliesh and was followed by six more mysteries before she retired from government service in 1979 to devote full time to writing.
Dalgliesh, James’s master detective who rises from chief inspector in the first novel to chief superintendent and then to commander, is a serious, introspective person, moralistic yet realistic. The novels in which he appears are peopled by fully rounded characters, who are civilized, genteel, and motivated. The public resonance created by James’s singular characterization and deployment of classic mystery devices led to most of the novels featuring Dalgliesh being filmed for television. James, who earned the sobriquet “Queen of Crime,” penned 14 Dalgliesh novels, with the last, The Private Patient, appearing in 2008.
James also wrote An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972) and The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982), which centre on Cordelia Gray, a young private detective. The first of these novels was the basis for both a television movie and a short-lived series. James expanded beyond the mystery genre in The Children of Men (1992; film 2006), which explores a dystopian world in which the human race has become infertile. Her final work, Death Comes to Pemberley (2011)—a sequel to Pride and Prejudice (1813)—amplifies the class and relationship tensions between Jane Austen’s characters by situating them in the midst of a murder investigation. James’s nonfiction works include The Maul and the Pear Tree (1971), a telling of the Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811 written with historian T.A. Critchley, and the insightful Talking About Detective Fiction (2009). Her memoir, Time to Be in Earnest, was published in 2000. She was made OBE in 1983 and was named a life peer in 1991.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,882 reviews
May 6, 2012
After my brain injury, PD James became a marker for me in my reading progress. Pre-injury I read every one of her books and enjoyed them tremendously for their good writing and good stories. After my injury though, with my reading ability fried, I couldn't read any of her books. Too many characters to follow, plots that meandered beyond my ability to follow, writing at a grade level higher than what I'd sunk down to... It was rather disappointing to see her new books come out over the years and know I wouldn't read them.
And then I was enrolled in a research drug trial in March. I felt my cognitive abilities shift, and I suddenly realised I was reading more. I dared to try a PD James. I followed my rehab therapists' advice: read a book I'd already read, tis easier. And so I went all the way back to James's first Dalgliesh book.
It felt quite familiar.
I'd begun reading PD James in my teens, an age when I still reread books (sometime in my twenties I stopped rereading them because as soon as I'd read the first paragraph, the entire book would flood back into my memory). And so I'd probably reread Cover Her Face a few times years ago. Also, the story is reminiscent of a couple of Agatha Christie mysteries (which I continued to reread after my brain injury), making the plot familiar in several ways. Even so, I did have some trouble keeping track of the characters, and I only solved the mystery near the end, which is better than my usual not-solving-the-mystery-at-all track record since the injury. But the writing was demonstrably superior to many of the books I've been reading. It was rather satisfying to sink my teeth into a book fully of layers and complexities due to the author's good command of the language.
I enjoyed it immensely.
And then I was enrolled in a research drug trial in March. I felt my cognitive abilities shift, and I suddenly realised I was reading more. I dared to try a PD James. I followed my rehab therapists' advice: read a book I'd already read, tis easier. And so I went all the way back to James's first Dalgliesh book.
It felt quite familiar.
I'd begun reading PD James in my teens, an age when I still reread books (sometime in my twenties I stopped rereading them because as soon as I'd read the first paragraph, the entire book would flood back into my memory). And so I'd probably reread Cover Her Face a few times years ago. Also, the story is reminiscent of a couple of Agatha Christie mysteries (which I continued to reread after my brain injury), making the plot familiar in several ways. Even so, I did have some trouble keeping track of the characters, and I only solved the mystery near the end, which is better than my usual not-solving-the-mystery-at-all track record since the injury. But the writing was demonstrably superior to many of the books I've been reading. It was rather satisfying to sink my teeth into a book fully of layers and complexities due to the author's good command of the language.
I enjoyed it immensely.
August 6, 2017
Back to basics! I switched from modern cozies and crime fiction to a supposed blast from the past. I remembered a few PD James novels I read in college as part of my mystery fiction independent studies and decided to start the series.
As expected, very reminiscent of Agatha Christie but with a little more modern appeal. I enjoyed the characters and premise for a traditional whodunit!
I also like the wrap up of all the main characters in the end, as well as that at least one of them is seen again in future novels (no spoilers here!).
If you're a traditional mystery buff, or have an avid whodunit interest, you may be able to figure the culprit on your own, but rest assured, it's not as simple as X did it the candlestick in the library!
Remember the movie Clue!!!
As expected, very reminiscent of Agatha Christie but with a little more modern appeal. I enjoyed the characters and premise for a traditional whodunit!
I also like the wrap up of all the main characters in the end, as well as that at least one of them is seen again in future novels (no spoilers here!).
If you're a traditional mystery buff, or have an avid whodunit interest, you may be able to figure the culprit on your own, but rest assured, it's not as simple as X did it the candlestick in the library!
Remember the movie Clue!!!
January 3, 2020
I have not read the first Adam Dalgleish novel for some time, so it was a pleasure to return to P D James and her very first book. In some ways this is a very typical mystery. The Maxie family live in the big house, in somewhat genteel poverty, with the only full time staff member the loyal Martha. As well as the housework and cooking, Mr Maxie is bedridden, so Mrs Maxie employs Sally Jupp, an unmarried mother as a house-parlourmaid. She is convinced by Miss Liddell, the Warden of St Mary’s Refuge for Girls, that Sally will be a hard worker, but the arrival of sly, devious and attractive Sally causes chaos within the house. On the night of the Church Fete, held at Martingale, home of the Maxie’s, the young woman is killed.
Enter Detective Chief-Inspector Adam Dalgliesh to investigate. We have a whole host of suspects and motives and the novel is, as you would expect, extremely well plotted. I found the way Sally Jupp was presented as both a sympathetic victim, and yet essentially a young woman that nobody seemed to like, cleverly done and there were plenty of twists and turns. This reads very much as a stand alone novel, although, as we know, Dalgleish was to become a much loved and long running character. It was a joy to embark on this series again and I look forward to reading on.
Enter Detective Chief-Inspector Adam Dalgliesh to investigate. We have a whole host of suspects and motives and the novel is, as you would expect, extremely well plotted. I found the way Sally Jupp was presented as both a sympathetic victim, and yet essentially a young woman that nobody seemed to like, cleverly done and there were plenty of twists and turns. This reads very much as a stand alone novel, although, as we know, Dalgleish was to become a much loved and long running character. It was a joy to embark on this series again and I look forward to reading on.
May 10, 2013
Nažalost, kod nas je bila popularnija serija snimljena po romanima o inspektori Daglišu nego sami roman P.D. Džejms... :) Ko je još nije čitao neka požuri, mnogo je propustio :)
June 5, 2017
It's been a long time since I read a book by this author, but I think I remember having liked them. Maybe the other books were better or maybe I have just outgrown my interest in mysteries, at least the British variety with tea cups, jam jars, jumble sales and small gossipy villages. Whatever the reason, I was really unimpressed by this book.
Most of the suspects were introduced in tedious detail in the first chapter, but the murder did not occur until about the 25% point of the book. At that time Detective Adam Dalgliesh arrived on the scene, but he did very little "detecting" thereafter. He was barely in the book other than to conduct long interviews with the suspects and then, in the ultimate cliché, gather them all together in one room to declare the crime solved. The solution involved secret relatives and missing limbs. I had not guessed the criminal, so that's something in it's favor. I didn't really dislike this book, I've just moved on.
Most of the suspects were introduced in tedious detail in the first chapter, but the murder did not occur until about the 25% point of the book. At that time Detective Adam Dalgliesh arrived on the scene, but he did very little "detecting" thereafter. He was barely in the book other than to conduct long interviews with the suspects and then, in the ultimate cliché, gather them all together in one room to declare the crime solved. The solution involved secret relatives and missing limbs. I had not guessed the criminal, so that's something in it's favor. I didn't really dislike this book, I've just moved on.
April 5, 2010
I'm beginning to think by some coincidence the very first PD James I read also happened to be the only interesting book she's ever written. Honestly, I would really like to like her, but I can't.
Cover Her Face
is her first novel and I wonder how she ever became successful this way. It suffers from all the flaws I've found pervasive in her other novels – boring descriptions, unlikeable characters, and zero suspense. The mystery plot has a lot of painstakingly crafted red herrings and clues, but I just didn't care enough to be interested in the solution.
And I don't get the appeal of Adam Dalgliesh. Your star detective is supposed to have personality, so people want to read about him, you know. The only indication James ever gives that Dalgliesh is not a robot is that every now and then she'll have him think about his dead wife. But other than that, he is as flat as paper. The cover blurbs set him up as a rival to Ngaio Marsh's Alleyn, but um... being boring and mechanical is not actually the same as being cool and stoic. Sorry.
Afraid I'm done with PD James. Done done done.
And I don't get the appeal of Adam Dalgliesh. Your star detective is supposed to have personality, so people want to read about him, you know. The only indication James ever gives that Dalgliesh is not a robot is that every now and then she'll have him think about his dead wife. But other than that, he is as flat as paper. The cover blurbs set him up as a rival to Ngaio Marsh's Alleyn, but um... being boring and mechanical is not actually the same as being cool and stoic. Sorry.
Afraid I'm done with PD James. Done done done.
September 24, 2019
I read this book to fill the International Woman of Mystery square of my 2019 Halloween Bingo Card.
This is my first foray into P.D. James’ mystery writing and I was pleasantly impressed. I can certainly see a relationship to the works of Agatha Christie--but I guess it is virtually impossible to write in this genre without paying homage to both her and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. What James does so well is to make me feel like I truly know the people that she is writing about. They aren’t just cardboard cut-outs, they are fully realized people with their own motivations and prejudices. They are part of their community, well known and involved.
What she also captures so well, in my opinion, is the way that society was changing in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Class was becoming less meaningful and less respected. Sexual mores were already shifting and loosening. Charity from upper class people was less valued and more resented.
In Dalgleish himself, I see the roots of another favourite detective, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, written by Louise Penny. They are both quiet, introspective, intellectual men who have good taste and good sense. I didn’t get to know Adam Dalgliesh as well as I would like to in this first book, but I will certainly go on to the next book to see if I can remedy that situation.
This is my first foray into P.D. James’ mystery writing and I was pleasantly impressed. I can certainly see a relationship to the works of Agatha Christie--but I guess it is virtually impossible to write in this genre without paying homage to both her and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. What James does so well is to make me feel like I truly know the people that she is writing about. They aren’t just cardboard cut-outs, they are fully realized people with their own motivations and prejudices. They are part of their community, well known and involved.
What she also captures so well, in my opinion, is the way that society was changing in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Class was becoming less meaningful and less respected. Sexual mores were already shifting and loosening. Charity from upper class people was less valued and more resented.
In Dalgleish himself, I see the roots of another favourite detective, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, written by Louise Penny. They are both quiet, introspective, intellectual men who have good taste and good sense. I didn’t get to know Adam Dalgliesh as well as I would like to in this first book, but I will certainly go on to the next book to see if I can remedy that situation.
June 28, 2018
Dud
All that case build-up for naught 😐
All that case build-up for naught 😐
August 28, 2022
Fifties of the last century. The sexual revolution is very close, which will sweep away or, at least, significantly correct the concepts of things allowed and not allowed in the sphere of sex, While good old England is a stronghold of morality, condemning everything that does not fit into the norms.
Nevertheless, a girl from among the "stumblers" (unmarried, with a baby) is accepted as a maid in a respectable estate. The owners are not even confused by the fact that a woman with a small child is not the best possible candidate, and Sally lives up to their expectations. She is a wonderful mother and an excellent worker: sweet, understanding, efficient, respectful. Until the evening when he announces to the employer that from now on he will live in her house in the position of not a servant, but a daughter-in-law.
Whether Sally Japp was a naive and innocent fly or a spider who was unlucky enough to get entangled in her own net, the reader will have to find out under the wise guidance of detective poet Adam Dalgliesh.
Мошки и пауки
- Лицо ее закройте, мои глаза ослепнуть могут
Столь юной умерла она…
- Не думаю. Несчастие ее,
Что прожила она так долго.
Вебстер "Герцогиня Малфийская"
Пятидесятые прошлого века. Совсем близко сексуальная революция, которая сметет или, по крайней мере, существенно откорректирует понятия о дозволенных и недозволенных в сфере пола вещах, Пока же старая добрая Англия оплот морали, осуждающей все, что не вписывается в нормы.
Тем не менее, девушка из числа "оступившихся" (незамужняя, с младенцем) принята горничной в респектабельное поместье. Хозяев не смущает даже то, что женщина с маленьким ребенком не лучшая из возможных кандидатур, и Салли оправдывает их ожидания. Она прекрасная мать и отличная работница: мила, понятлива, расторопна, почтительна. Вплоть до того вечера, когда объявит работодательнице, что отныне будет жить в ее доме на положении не прислуги, но невестки.
А следующим утром случится то, что выведет на сцену детектива-поэта Адама Дэлглиша - сквозного персонажа Ф. Д. Джеймс, знаковой фигуры английского детектива. Не получив высшего образования из-за нехватки средств, и вынужденная содержать собственную семью, когда муж вернулся со Второй Мировой больным, она завершила жизнь офицером Ордена Британской империи, Пэром палаты лордов и баронессой. Список достижений говорит сам за себя
Если вы уже успели познакомиться с Дэлглишем, продолжать можно с любого места, серия романов о нем организована без выраженной личной линии детектива, как у Несбё с Харри Холе, например. Если нет, то самое время свести знакомство, тем более, что "Лицо ее закройте" дебютный роман звезды классического детектива.
Убийство Салли Джапп погружает нас в атмосферу британского поместья, где традиции и ритуалы играют не меньшую роль, чем сотню лет назад, а плетение отношений между персонажами образует сложный узор с юной красоткой в центре паутины. Была она наивной и невинной мушкой или паучихой, которой не повезло запутаться в собственной сети, предстоит узнать читателю под мудрым руководством Адама Дэлглиша.
Ауди��версия романа прочитана Игорем Князевым, если вы любите его исполнение так же, как я - не пропустите.
Nevertheless, a girl from among the "stumblers" (unmarried, with a baby) is accepted as a maid in a respectable estate. The owners are not even confused by the fact that a woman with a small child is not the best possible candidate, and Sally lives up to their expectations. She is a wonderful mother and an excellent worker: sweet, understanding, efficient, respectful. Until the evening when he announces to the employer that from now on he will live in her house in the position of not a servant, but a daughter-in-law.
Whether Sally Japp was a naive and innocent fly or a spider who was unlucky enough to get entangled in her own net, the reader will have to find out under the wise guidance of detective poet Adam Dalgliesh.
Мошки и пауки
- Лицо ее закройте, мои глаза ослепнуть могут
Столь юной умерла она…
- Не думаю. Несчастие ее,
Что прожила она так долго.
Вебстер "Герцогиня Малфийская"
Пятидесятые прошлого века. Совсем близко сексуальная революция, которая сметет или, по крайней мере, существенно откорректирует понятия о дозволенных и недозволенных в сфере пола вещах, Пока же старая добрая Англия оплот морали, осуждающей все, что не вписывается в нормы.
Тем не менее, девушка из числа "оступившихся" (незамужняя, с младенцем) принята горничной в респектабельное поместье. Хозяев не смущает даже то, что женщина с маленьким ребенком не лучшая из возможных кандидатур, и Салли оправдывает их ожидания. Она прекрасная мать и отличная работница: мила, понятлива, расторопна, почтительна. Вплоть до того вечера, когда объявит работодательнице, что отныне будет жить в ее доме на положении не прислуги, но невестки.
А следующим утром случится то, что выведет на сцену детектива-поэта Адама Дэлглиша - сквозного персонажа Ф. Д. Джеймс, знаковой фигуры английского детектива. Не получив высшего образования из-за нехватки средств, и вынужденная содержать собственную семью, когда муж вернулся со Второй Мировой больным, она завершила жизнь офицером Ордена Британской империи, Пэром палаты лордов и баронессой. Список достижений говорит сам за себя
Если вы уже успели познакомиться с Дэлглишем, продолжать можно с любого места, серия романов о нем организована без выраженной личной линии детектива, как у Несбё с Харри Холе, например. Если нет, то самое время свести знакомство, тем более, что "Лицо ее закройте" дебютный роман звезды классического детектива.
Убийство Салли Джапп погружает нас в атмосферу британского поместья, где традиции и ритуалы играют не меньшую роль, чем сотню лет назад, а плетение отношений между персонажами образует сложный узор с юной красоткой в центре паутины. Была она наивной и невинной мушкой или паучихой, которой не повезло запутаться в собственной сети, предстоит узнать читателю под мудрым руководством Адама Дэлглиша.
Ауди��версия романа прочитана Игорем Князевым, если вы любите его исполнение так же, как я - не пропустите.
January 3, 2020
This was surprisingly good! My first P.D. James story and her debut. It was more old fashioned than I thought it would be and I look forward to reading more of the series.
February 22, 2023
A labyrinth of issues woven together to create a mystery that challenges…
December 10, 2019
This book was another result of me aimlessly browsing the available audiobook downloads from my library, and since I had read one PD James mystery (The Skull Beneath the Skin) and enjoyed it, I decided to give this a shot. This is actually James’ debut mystery, so I’m willing to forgive the more clunky aspects of the book in light of that.
The story follows your basic murder mystery formula, where we have a wealthy family in an English country manor, and muuuuuurder.
It’s a perfectly serviceable mystery, although not particularly memorable. There are some very, very obvious moments (like when one of the characters is saying that she’s sure her husband has an alibi for the night of the murder because she checked the clock when he came in, and it’s clear immediately that he adjusted the time) and I honestly can’t remember a lot of the finer details of the story. Everything gets wrapped up neatly, and the detective’s solution doesn’t have any obvious holes in it, so overall, solid three stars – no more, no less.
The story follows your basic murder mystery formula, where we have a wealthy family in an English country manor, and muuuuuurder.
It’s a perfectly serviceable mystery, although not particularly memorable. There are some very, very obvious moments (like when one of the characters is saying that she’s sure her husband has an alibi for the night of the murder because she checked the clock when he came in, and it’s clear immediately that he adjusted the time) and I honestly can’t remember a lot of the finer details of the story. Everything gets wrapped up neatly, and the detective’s solution doesn’t have any obvious holes in it, so overall, solid three stars – no more, no less.
July 27, 2022
Why was the title to this book “Cover Her Face” I wonder. When the women was murdered, her face was not covered.
I did not guess ‘whodunit’, so that is good.
I liked this quote because it was evocative:
• She was dressed in a short tweed skirt and a man’s white shirt with a yellow and green woven tie which reminded Stephen unpleasantly of a squashed cabbage caterpillar. 😆
I did not guess ‘whodunit’, so that is good.
I liked this quote because it was evocative:
• She was dressed in a short tweed skirt and a man’s white shirt with a yellow and green woven tie which reminded Stephen unpleasantly of a squashed cabbage caterpillar. 😆
February 12, 2020
Great introduction to Inspector Dalgleish, although he was more in the background. Enjoyed the setting, characters, and intricate locked door mystery! Looking forward to the second book!
March 20, 2021
2.5 stars
If you are looking for a fast-paced thriller, this book is NOT for you. I read it for several weeks at bedtime and dropped off each night after a couple of pages. I give it high marks for inducing sleep! I just now realized that I read this book nine years ago and remembered none of it. I had given it a two star rating then, but didn't review it.
In this first book of the series, Inspector Dalgliesh interviews and investigates each murder suspect at length. The suspects include the family, staff and dinner guests at a country estate, relatives of the murdered woman and several villagers. Dalgliesh conducts his investigation in great detail, somewhat like peeling back the layers of an onion, until I nodded off.
It was heartening to know that attitudes about sexual harassment have advanced since the publication of this book in 1962. Here is an example that made my jaw drop: ". . . Sally was sent down to the packing-room with a message. Apparently he made some kind of sexual advance to her. It can't have been serious. The man was genuinely surprised when he got the sack for it. He may only have tried to kiss her. I never did get the whole story. But from the fuss she made you'd have thought she was stripped naked and raped. It was all very estimable of her to be so shocked, but most girls today seem to be able to cope with that kind of situation without having hysterics." p. 199. Unbelievable! Blame Sally for not being able to cope with the disgusting creep! At least he got the sack, which was probably unusual for the time.
I upped my rating slightly based on the ending which had a couple of unexpected twists. The ending was actually pretty good. I'm not sure if I will continue with the Dalgliesh series, but maybe book 2 will also be a good soporific.
If you are looking for a fast-paced thriller, this book is NOT for you. I read it for several weeks at bedtime and dropped off each night after a couple of pages. I give it high marks for inducing sleep! I just now realized that I read this book nine years ago and remembered none of it. I had given it a two star rating then, but didn't review it.
In this first book of the series, Inspector Dalgliesh interviews and investigates each murder suspect at length. The suspects include the family, staff and dinner guests at a country estate, relatives of the murdered woman and several villagers. Dalgliesh conducts his investigation in great detail, somewhat like peeling back the layers of an onion, until I nodded off.
It was heartening to know that attitudes about sexual harassment have advanced since the publication of this book in 1962. Here is an example that made my jaw drop: ". . . Sally was sent down to the packing-room with a message. Apparently he made some kind of sexual advance to her. It can't have been serious. The man was genuinely surprised when he got the sack for it. He may only have tried to kiss her. I never did get the whole story. But from the fuss she made you'd have thought she was stripped naked and raped. It was all very estimable of her to be so shocked, but most girls today seem to be able to cope with that kind of situation without having hysterics." p. 199. Unbelievable! Blame Sally for not being able to cope with the disgusting creep! At least he got the sack, which was probably unusual for the time.
I upped my rating slightly based on the ending which had a couple of unexpected twists. The ending was actually pretty good. I'm not sure if I will continue with the Dalgliesh series, but maybe book 2 will also be a good soporific.
August 19, 2015
Where I got the book: Audiobook on Audible.
I thought it was about time I listened to the entire Adam Dalgleish series—I’ve read some of them but certainly none of the early ones. In this 1962 story you can see the tradition that goes back to the Golden Age of the detective story in the 1930s. All the clichés are there: the stately home, the nerve-ridden war hero, the lower classes kowtowing to the upper, the vicar a sort of go-between in terms of social status.
Except that it wasn’t, of course—James updated her stately home mystery to portray a society shaken by (another) War and by the social upheaval that followed it. The staff at Martingale is reduced to a sort of housekeeper, Martha, with no butler in sight to do the dirty deed. Martha is aided by a housemaid, Sally Jupp, an unmarried mother who seems to take lightly what would once have been a cause of shame. The lower classes are decidedly uppity, with their carefully tended council houses and a distinct touch of attitude toward their betters. The money is all gone, the master of the house is dying, and standards are always just a step away from slipping disastrously down the cliff face. And yet the Maxies struggle on, holding the village fête in their grounds, giving dinner parties and doing good wherever they can—such as taking in Sally and her child, whose father is unknown.
Manipulative Sally announces that she’s marrying into the Maxie family, but is found dead the next morning and the chief constable calls in the Yard, in the form of Dalgleish. We learn little about the detective, who comes across as rather two-dimensional, prone to saying “yes, we know all about that,” when a new clue is revealed (and if the police knew all about it, why wasn’t the reader informed, I’d like to know?) Dalgleish is admired by his sergeant and clearly thought a Sexy Beast by the family’s attractive widow, but I never really got a clear impression of what made him such a striking figure. I guess it took James a while to build him into the Sensitive Loner Dectective that sent readers’ hearts a-fluttering.
Two factors in particular made this story seem very dated to me. One was the omniscient narrator, popping happily into the suspects’ heads without warning and in a very erratic fashion, as if the writer occasionally became tired of doing the storytelling and handed the job over to someone else for five minutes. The other, alas, was the voice of audiobook narrator Penelope Dellaporta, which was standard BBC refined actress—I’ve become so unused to hearing this voice that its plumminess tends to get on my nerves. Furthermore, when I was listening to the audiobook without earbuds, there were odd popping noises as if people were playing ping-pong in the background. It didn’t happen when I put my earbuds in—very strange.
And, oh my goodness, every upper class character in the story was a resounding snob. Except, perhaps, the vicar, and vicars are, socially speaking, neither fish nor fowl. The descriptions of the lower orders’ houses were spectacularly condescending—was James playing to the sensibilities of her supposed readership, or was this how she actually thought? It seems almost impossible that English society was that hidebound just fiftysomething years ago.
The story wasn’t bad, apart from the tendency the characters had to explain their actions very carefully in chronological order, helpful if you’re the sort of mystery fan who loves the timetable aspect of investigation but not very realistic. There were some nice twists, and the whole thing culminated, very satisfactorily, with the great detective gathering all the suspects together in one room and methodically explaining what happened, with further twists in the tale being provided by timely interruptions. All very mechanical, really, but interesting—you can see the straight line going back to Dorothy L. Sayers and forward to the writer P.D. James would become in her later life. Development of the Mystery Story 101.
This methodical method of building up a story was a bit on the slow side, of course. But it’s a true portrait, I think, of a world that was being swept away even as P.D. James was writing. I’m looking forward to seeing her move into the 70s . . . although, of course, if I remember anything of the Dalgleish stories I read, she tended to adopt the closed-community scenario where people were sort of stranded in time.
I thought it was about time I listened to the entire Adam Dalgleish series—I’ve read some of them but certainly none of the early ones. In this 1962 story you can see the tradition that goes back to the Golden Age of the detective story in the 1930s. All the clichés are there: the stately home, the nerve-ridden war hero, the lower classes kowtowing to the upper, the vicar a sort of go-between in terms of social status.
Except that it wasn’t, of course—James updated her stately home mystery to portray a society shaken by (another) War and by the social upheaval that followed it. The staff at Martingale is reduced to a sort of housekeeper, Martha, with no butler in sight to do the dirty deed. Martha is aided by a housemaid, Sally Jupp, an unmarried mother who seems to take lightly what would once have been a cause of shame. The lower classes are decidedly uppity, with their carefully tended council houses and a distinct touch of attitude toward their betters. The money is all gone, the master of the house is dying, and standards are always just a step away from slipping disastrously down the cliff face. And yet the Maxies struggle on, holding the village fête in their grounds, giving dinner parties and doing good wherever they can—such as taking in Sally and her child, whose father is unknown.
Manipulative Sally announces that she’s marrying into the Maxie family, but is found dead the next morning and the chief constable calls in the Yard, in the form of Dalgleish. We learn little about the detective, who comes across as rather two-dimensional, prone to saying “yes, we know all about that,” when a new clue is revealed (and if the police knew all about it, why wasn’t the reader informed, I’d like to know?) Dalgleish is admired by his sergeant and clearly thought a Sexy Beast by the family’s attractive widow, but I never really got a clear impression of what made him such a striking figure. I guess it took James a while to build him into the Sensitive Loner Dectective that sent readers’ hearts a-fluttering.
Two factors in particular made this story seem very dated to me. One was the omniscient narrator, popping happily into the suspects’ heads without warning and in a very erratic fashion, as if the writer occasionally became tired of doing the storytelling and handed the job over to someone else for five minutes. The other, alas, was the voice of audiobook narrator Penelope Dellaporta, which was standard BBC refined actress—I’ve become so unused to hearing this voice that its plumminess tends to get on my nerves. Furthermore, when I was listening to the audiobook without earbuds, there were odd popping noises as if people were playing ping-pong in the background. It didn’t happen when I put my earbuds in—very strange.
And, oh my goodness, every upper class character in the story was a resounding snob. Except, perhaps, the vicar, and vicars are, socially speaking, neither fish nor fowl. The descriptions of the lower orders’ houses were spectacularly condescending—was James playing to the sensibilities of her supposed readership, or was this how she actually thought? It seems almost impossible that English society was that hidebound just fiftysomething years ago.
The story wasn’t bad, apart from the tendency the characters had to explain their actions very carefully in chronological order, helpful if you’re the sort of mystery fan who loves the timetable aspect of investigation but not very realistic. There were some nice twists, and the whole thing culminated, very satisfactorily, with the great detective gathering all the suspects together in one room and methodically explaining what happened, with further twists in the tale being provided by timely interruptions. All very mechanical, really, but interesting—you can see the straight line going back to Dorothy L. Sayers and forward to the writer P.D. James would become in her later life. Development of the Mystery Story 101.
This methodical method of building up a story was a bit on the slow side, of course. But it’s a true portrait, I think, of a world that was being swept away even as P.D. James was writing. I’m looking forward to seeing her move into the 70s . . . although, of course, if I remember anything of the Dalgleish stories I read, she tended to adopt the closed-community scenario where people were sort of stranded in time.
January 5, 2020
3.5 stars
PD James' first novel which self-consciously takes all the formulaic tropes of the classic murder mystery (think Agatha Christie) and overlays them with elegant writing, thicker characterisation, and a sense of slow social change.
The setting is that hoary old chestnut: the village fete; but at the centre of the book is the uppity lower class Sally who has the temerity to flaunt her red hair, her single-mother status and her sly manipulations of the master of the house... small wonder, then, that she ends up dead (James, let's not forget, was eventually made a Tory peer and her conservatism with a big and little C is on show from the start).
Enter DCI Adam Dalgleish, all restrained and cerebral intelligence, hiding a secret emotional trauma and, it turns out, with a pash on one of the suspects, filtering through the closed circle all of whom have a motive to kill Sally.
I felt at times that James is overly constrained by the conventions of the genre, most pressingly at the end when Dalgleish, quite unbelievably, gathers all the suspects in the library (oh, alright then, the 'business room', because that's the sort of family the Maxies are) and does a Poirot-style revelation of what happened on Murder Night. Nothing could be more out of character for the unflamboyant, undramatic Dalgleish who later wants to apologise for arresting the murderer.
James is a very earnest writer, verging on the pompous, and there's no sense of humour in either the book or any of the characters. Her snobbishness is on fine show maintaining class differences via taste (that plastic dog in the window! the metaphorical forelock-pulling of the groom who would do anything for the Maxies!) even while they begin to blur in 1960s society. The time setting seems earlier both in having Sally employed as a 'parlourmaid' at the Big House, and the constant references back to the war. There's a similar confusion about the son of the house: he's referred to as a 'boy' and various people splutter about him being in no financial position to take on a wife with baby - only it turns out he's a London surgeon which, surely, speaks to age and a lucrative salary even in the 1960s?
I enjoyed this for what it is, enough to read on in the series, but it doesn't have the same pleasurable lightness of touch and self-deprecating wit as Christie: 3.5 stars.
PD James' first novel which self-consciously takes all the formulaic tropes of the classic murder mystery (think Agatha Christie) and overlays them with elegant writing, thicker characterisation, and a sense of slow social change.
The setting is that hoary old chestnut: the village fete; but at the centre of the book is the uppity lower class Sally who has the temerity to flaunt her red hair, her single-mother status and her sly manipulations of the master of the house... small wonder, then, that she ends up dead (James, let's not forget, was eventually made a Tory peer and her conservatism with a big and little C is on show from the start).
Enter DCI Adam Dalgleish, all restrained and cerebral intelligence, hiding a secret emotional trauma and, it turns out, with a pash on one of the suspects, filtering through the closed circle all of whom have a motive to kill Sally.
I felt at times that James is overly constrained by the conventions of the genre, most pressingly at the end when Dalgleish, quite unbelievably, gathers all the suspects in the library (oh, alright then, the 'business room', because that's the sort of family the Maxies are) and does a Poirot-style revelation of what happened on Murder Night. Nothing could be more out of character for the unflamboyant, undramatic Dalgleish who later wants to apologise for arresting the murderer.
James is a very earnest writer, verging on the pompous, and there's no sense of humour in either the book or any of the characters. Her snobbishness is on fine show maintaining class differences via taste (that plastic dog in the window! the metaphorical forelock-pulling of the groom who would do anything for the Maxies!) even while they begin to blur in 1960s society. The time setting seems earlier both in having Sally employed as a 'parlourmaid' at the Big House, and the constant references back to the war. There's a similar confusion about the son of the house: he's referred to as a 'boy' and various people splutter about him being in no financial position to take on a wife with baby - only it turns out he's a London surgeon which, surely, speaks to age and a lucrative salary even in the 1960s?
I enjoyed this for what it is, enough to read on in the series, but it doesn't have the same pleasurable lightness of touch and self-deprecating wit as Christie: 3.5 stars.
July 23, 2018
I was working in London the summer of the year this book was first published but only now have I got round to reading it for the Kindle English Mystery Group. Although P. D. James shared with her friend Ruth Rendell the honour of making the detective story into a serious literary genre, Cover Her Face seems now to belong to the world of Agatha Christie than to ours, where crime fiction is the form of the novel that best engages serious moral and spiritual issues. Of course it was James and Rendell who accomplished it. I need to read Innocent Blood again to experience the difference. I'll write a review for the spoiler thread for the group to discuss plot details, but in summary would say that here it's an intricately constucted rather a Heath-Robinson device; too many unrelated threads have to coincide at the point of the murder and characters emerge from the backstory to account for all the clues. In hindsight the whole thing fell apart for me. The treatment of the victim's status as a single mum will remind all of us that we are extemely fortunate to be living now, not five decades ago.
April 2, 2022
'He spoke with satisfaction for he was a countryman by birth and inclination and was often heard to complain of the proclivity of murderers to commit their crimes in overcrowded cities and unsalubrious tenements.'
So, a murder in the English countryside! That's something very common, of course — apparently, there's a whole book on the subject: Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village.
I enjoyed the book, but I must quickly add that I am not a fan of crime fiction. What I like is reading about people and their relationships. I like reading about families, and I do like reading about the English countryside. I am easily depressed by descriptions of traumatic events, so when life gets particularly scary, I especially enjoy books where people have tea and try to be nice to each other. (And murder, of course, is an inevitable part of country life. I'm sure I often wish to be rid of my own countryside neighbours. With enough stories like this one, maybe one day I will skillfully fulfil some diabolical idea.)
I am saying this because I've seen other reviewers say that they've guessed who the murderer is, in a way as if this was a bad thing. Well, I've guessed, too, but I can see nothing wrong with it. After all, I find the resolutions of most murder mysteries so convoluted that nobody can really guess all the intricacies and coincidences, so it's not like one can guess everything.
And I've seen some people say that Dalgliesh is not effective and charismatic enough. But I've seen the recent series with Bertie Carvel and I think nobody who thinks of Dalgliesh in Bertie's interpretation would consider him uncharismatic, wouldn't they?
On the opposite, I liked it that the plot was not centred on the brilliant detective and his investigation. The characters are fleshed-out and prone to conduct their own investigations, I've found this very nice of them :)
In short, immediately upon finishing this one, I've bought the next Dalgliesh :)
So, a murder in the English countryside! That's something very common, of course — apparently, there's a whole book on the subject: Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village.
I enjoyed the book, but I must quickly add that I am not a fan of crime fiction. What I like is reading about people and their relationships. I like reading about families, and I do like reading about the English countryside. I am easily depressed by descriptions of traumatic events, so when life gets particularly scary, I especially enjoy books where people have tea and try to be nice to each other. (And murder, of course, is an inevitable part of country life. I'm sure I often wish to be rid of my own countryside neighbours. With enough stories like this one, maybe one day I will skillfully fulfil some diabolical idea.)
I am saying this because I've seen other reviewers say that they've guessed who the murderer is, in a way as if this was a bad thing. Well, I've guessed, too, but I can see nothing wrong with it. After all, I find the resolutions of most murder mysteries so convoluted that nobody can really guess all the intricacies and coincidences, so it's not like one can guess everything.
And I've seen some people say that Dalgliesh is not effective and charismatic enough. But I've seen the recent series with Bertie Carvel and I think nobody who thinks of Dalgliesh in Bertie's interpretation would consider him uncharismatic, wouldn't they?
On the opposite, I liked it that the plot was not centred on the brilliant detective and his investigation. The characters are fleshed-out and prone to conduct their own investigations, I've found this very nice of them :)
In short, immediately upon finishing this one, I've bought the next Dalgliesh :)
October 6, 2012
Meh. P.D. James is a competent writer and puts together a reasonable mystery, but there's nothing exciting about it -- I felt like I'd read it before, honestly. The Kindle version has very bad formatting, too ("that" turns into "mat", for example); no one bothered to proofread it. None of the characters are particularly interesting to me -- again, I seemed to have read all about them before, in other crime novels.
I think I had the same reaction to another P.D. James book, so maybe I just don't care for James' work.
I think I had the same reaction to another P.D. James book, so maybe I just don't care for James' work.
July 5, 2022
Maid For Murder
Review of the Sphere Books paperback edition (1974) of the original Faber & Faber hardcover (1962)
Rescued from storage and due for re-reading, my early P.D. James paperbacks, mostly published by Sphere Books from the 1980s.*
Cover Her Face was actually quite surprising in that Inspector Dalgliesh is mostly in the background for a great portion of the book. We learn a considerable amount of the back story and the inner lives of the principle suspects quite separately from the police interviews. We do not learn very much about Dalgliesh at all, certainly not that he is a published poet which must have been a later additional feature to the character and separates him from all other fictional police detectives in my mind.
The case involves the strangulation murder of young unwed mother Sally Jupp, who is working as a maid for the Maxie household. The investigation reveals that various motives could be behind the murder including jealousy and revenge for possible blackmail. Prior to her death, Jupp had revealed that the Maxie's son Stephen had proposed marriage to her, even though he was supposedly attached already to another house guest Catherine. The rest of the household were not approving of Sally even prior to that, her being especially in conflict with the cook Martha. The daughter of the household Deborah is friends with house guest Felix, a possibly unstable PTSD survivor of the war. The family matriarch Eleanor is nursing her dying husband who is prescribed sleep medication for his restlessness. Meanwhile, other men have been seen lurking on the property.
The solution is complicated by the discovery that Sally Jupp's cocoa was drugged with sleep medication on the night of the murder. Was that a coincidence which was separate from the murderer's plot or part of it? The reveal comes in a standard golden-age of crime scenario where Dalgliesh gathers all of the suspects in a room for the finale.
I enjoyed my reacquaintance with Adam Dalgliesh in this first novel of P.D. James and look forward to further reads in the series.
Trivia and Links
* The 1980s Sphere Books give the impression that they might be featuring the murder weapon in the cover photo, but the murder in Cover Her Face has nothing to do with a telephone.
Cover Her Face was adapted for television in 1985 as part of the long running Dalgliesh TV-series for Anglia Television (1983-1998) starring actor Roy Marsden as Chief Detective Inspector Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard. You can watch the entire 6 episodes of the 1985 adaptation on YouTube here (starting with Episode 1). NOTE: The TV adaptation is considerably different from the original novel.
There was a brief continuation TV-series for the BBC (2003-2005) starring Martin Shaw as Adam Dalgliesh, which did not include an adaptation of Cover Your Face.
The new reboot Dalgliesh Acorn TV-series (2021-?) starring Bertie Carver as Adam Dalgliesh has not yet done an adaptation of Cover Your Face. It has not been announced which books are being adapted for Season 2 (as of early July 2022).
Review of the Sphere Books paperback edition (1974) of the original Faber & Faber hardcover (1962)
Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle; she died young. - John Webster (1580-1634), from The Duchess of Malfi (1614)
Dalgliesh pondered on the diversity of the clues which he felt were salient in the case. There was Martha’s significant reluctance to dwell on one of Sally’s shortcomings. There was the bottle of Sommeil pressed hastily into the earth. There was an empty cocoa tin, a golden-haired girl laughing up at Stephen Maxie as he retrieved a child’s balloon from a Martingale elm, an anonymous telephone call and a gloved hand briefly glimpsed as it closed the trap-door into Bocock's loft. And at the heart of the mystery, the clue that would make all plain, lay the complex personality of Sally Jupp. - Chief Detective Inspector Dalgliesh ponders the clues in Cover Her Face.I decided to include P.D. James' (1920-2014) Adam Dalgliesh novels as one of my re-read binges due to the fortuitous discovery of several of the early paperbacks while I was emptying a storage locker. This went together with the discovery that there was a rebooted TV-series adapting the novels as well, which began in 2021.
Rescued from storage and due for re-reading, my early P.D. James paperbacks, mostly published by Sphere Books from the 1980s.*
Cover Her Face was actually quite surprising in that Inspector Dalgliesh is mostly in the background for a great portion of the book. We learn a considerable amount of the back story and the inner lives of the principle suspects quite separately from the police interviews. We do not learn very much about Dalgliesh at all, certainly not that he is a published poet which must have been a later additional feature to the character and separates him from all other fictional police detectives in my mind.
The case involves the strangulation murder of young unwed mother Sally Jupp, who is working as a maid for the Maxie household. The investigation reveals that various motives could be behind the murder including jealousy and revenge for possible blackmail. Prior to her death, Jupp had revealed that the Maxie's son Stephen had proposed marriage to her, even though he was supposedly attached already to another house guest Catherine. The rest of the household were not approving of Sally even prior to that, her being especially in conflict with the cook Martha. The daughter of the household Deborah is friends with house guest Felix, a possibly unstable PTSD survivor of the war. The family matriarch Eleanor is nursing her dying husband who is prescribed sleep medication for his restlessness. Meanwhile, other men have been seen lurking on the property.
The solution is complicated by the discovery that Sally Jupp's cocoa was drugged with sleep medication on the night of the murder. Was that a coincidence which was separate from the murderer's plot or part of it? The reveal comes in a standard golden-age of crime scenario where Dalgliesh gathers all of the suspects in a room for the finale.
I enjoyed my reacquaintance with Adam Dalgliesh in this first novel of P.D. James and look forward to further reads in the series.
Trivia and Links
* The 1980s Sphere Books give the impression that they might be featuring the murder weapon in the cover photo, but the murder in Cover Her Face has nothing to do with a telephone.
Cover Her Face was adapted for television in 1985 as part of the long running Dalgliesh TV-series for Anglia Television (1983-1998) starring actor Roy Marsden as Chief Detective Inspector Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard. You can watch the entire 6 episodes of the 1985 adaptation on YouTube here (starting with Episode 1). NOTE: The TV adaptation is considerably different from the original novel.
There was a brief continuation TV-series for the BBC (2003-2005) starring Martin Shaw as Adam Dalgliesh, which did not include an adaptation of Cover Your Face.
The new reboot Dalgliesh Acorn TV-series (2021-?) starring Bertie Carver as Adam Dalgliesh has not yet done an adaptation of Cover Your Face. It has not been announced which books are being adapted for Season 2 (as of early July 2022).
November 20, 2017
PD Jame's first mystery novel, and a confusing one it is.
Though I did enjoy it, one must quickly become accustomed to her very, very literary writing style. Two things stand out: long sentences and a somewhat confusing omniscient POV. There were moments when I thought: who is this talking? What? Whose head am I in? There's also the custom of placing quotation marks around thoughts, so very often I'd be thinking - what? Is She or He saying that aloud?
However, Ms. James does conveniently write, 'his thoughts were,' or 'she thought,' etc.., but if you read quite speedily and are accustomed to quotation marks indicating spoken dialogue, well then, get with the program! This writer is an artist and one of the finest of her generation!
So I did. I buckled down, read more slowly and found the book a delight. I'd originally read it about thirty years ago, but as I read, remembered most of it.
A young, unmarried and uppity maid - mother of a child, no less! the horror! - is found dead in her bed. Her cocoa has been tampered with; her neck bears marks of strangulation. There are several members of the wealthy, entitled family she works for hanging about, not to mention two sort of live-in or visiting guests. (I love this about murders set in English country homes - they always have these hangers-on about who just mess up things in a lively and entertaining manner.)
Of course Mr. Adam Dalgliesh - or Detective Chief Inspector - is called in to solve the case, and he does, quite handily. With lots of interviews, most of which makes everyone nervous and suspicious, and a bit of tidy detective work involving fingerprints, bolted doors, outer doors and who locked them up and when, a ladder, a young boy, the local vicar (naturally!) and a country doctor. It all makes for a lively and fascinating read.
(I especially love the fascination of locked and unlocked doors when it comes to English country homes. There's often a lot of discussion about who has a key, who came home when, who 'locked up' or forgot to, and often why 'we' don't lock our doors because, of course, nothing ever happens out here or in this tiny village, and so on. This kind of discussion can go on for pages!)
But read this book very slowly or you will get lost!
Though I did enjoy it, one must quickly become accustomed to her very, very literary writing style. Two things stand out: long sentences and a somewhat confusing omniscient POV. There were moments when I thought: who is this talking? What? Whose head am I in? There's also the custom of placing quotation marks around thoughts, so very often I'd be thinking - what? Is She or He saying that aloud?
However, Ms. James does conveniently write, 'his thoughts were,' or 'she thought,' etc.., but if you read quite speedily and are accustomed to quotation marks indicating spoken dialogue, well then, get with the program! This writer is an artist and one of the finest of her generation!
So I did. I buckled down, read more slowly and found the book a delight. I'd originally read it about thirty years ago, but as I read, remembered most of it.
A young, unmarried and uppity maid - mother of a child, no less! the horror! - is found dead in her bed. Her cocoa has been tampered with; her neck bears marks of strangulation. There are several members of the wealthy, entitled family she works for hanging about, not to mention two sort of live-in or visiting guests. (I love this about murders set in English country homes - they always have these hangers-on about who just mess up things in a lively and entertaining manner.)
Of course Mr. Adam Dalgliesh - or Detective Chief Inspector - is called in to solve the case, and he does, quite handily. With lots of interviews, most of which makes everyone nervous and suspicious, and a bit of tidy detective work involving fingerprints, bolted doors, outer doors and who locked them up and when, a ladder, a young boy, the local vicar (naturally!) and a country doctor. It all makes for a lively and fascinating read.
(I especially love the fascination of locked and unlocked doors when it comes to English country homes. There's often a lot of discussion about who has a key, who came home when, who 'locked up' or forgot to, and often why 'we' don't lock our doors because, of course, nothing ever happens out here or in this tiny village, and so on. This kind of discussion can go on for pages!)
But read this book very slowly or you will get lost!
September 25, 2019
Dame Agatha Christie and Her Peers
BOOK 7
I read a P.D.James book years ago, and instead of finding a "Christie-Cozy" relaxing read, I found it to be overly challenging and confusing at times: I had to focus a bit more while reading James than other 'who-did-it' type authors. So, I'm going to give James another try, starting with this, the first in the Dalgiesh series.
CAST=3 stars: Here, Detective Chief Inspector Adam Dalgiesh feels rather flat, but at a first outing, no author wants to give too much away about a series P.I./detective. Mrs. Eleanor Maxie had given a dinner party about 3 months previous to the current time-line in this book. Something happened, we aren't told what. Dr. Charles Epps, Vicar Bernard Hinks, Miss Liddel (warden of St. Mary's Refuge for Girls), Catherine Bowers (an amicable nurse), and Dr. Stephen Maxie were at that party, and it appears Bowers and Maxie had been 'involved." Others had attended that previous party, but here is where things get tricky: some characters in the current time-line/party didn't attend the last one, like Miss Pollock who is 2nd in charge at St. Mary's. I liked that in the edition I read (and this might be true of all editions), a list of characters were provided up front. (The edition of "War and Peace" I read had a nice, thick bookmark with all the main characters and their various names printed on that bookmark, front and back. Great idea, I'd like to see more of that in books with large casts.) Back to "Cover Her Face", I thought the cast solid but no one really stood out. (Well, other than the person who may or may not have been standing on a ladder...sorry, bad pun, couldn't help it.)
ATMOSPHERE/PLACE - 2 stars: The Martingale house might be fabulous, might be falling apart, we just don't know. There is a church function. One character's bedroom is initially described as a big, functional nursery with no personal belongings. Later, when Dalgiesh questions the character, we learn there had been figurines on a windowsill which are now broken. Did James realize only late in the book she needed decorative figurines to be broken to advance the plot. Or was the room decorated by the inhabitant as the novel progressed? It's impossible (well, for me) to tell. Given this novel is James first in the series, I did get the impression she was feeling her way through: thus my 2-star rating for this element.
PLOT/CRIME - 4 stars: During the current time-line/house party, "X" is strangled. That's rather common, but James does add a locked-room mystery to the murder, so I'm adding a star for a 4-star plot/crime element. In addition, the author opens the novel with what is either a great red herring or a big clue to the solution itself: "Exactly 3 months before the killing at Martingale, Mrs. Maxie gave a dinner party....[She'd] looked back on that spring evening as the opening scene of tragedy." You decide: are the clues in the past, or in the present? And of those people who attended or did not attend that party, which of them might be the killer in the current time-line. Great potential here for a mind-stretching exercise!
INVESTIGATION - 2 stars. Dagliesh has his work cut out for him. He must interview a lot of people, then re-interview them. He digs deep. But here is my problem: I have eleven (yes, 11) pages of notes and questions. Like a list of people who arrived Friday evening for the weekend party just before dinner, then who arrived later Friday night, then the arrivals on Saturday morning. For the Friday dinner, for example, Dagliesh knows Dr. Maxie had arrived late but Catherine (his romantic love interest?) had arrived early. Sunday morning, someone has a headache and takes what appears to be aspirin, but is Sommeil. I could go on and on. Is the need for 11 pages of notes indicative of a good mystery, or does that mean James didn't really have a specific goal? I'll go with the latter explanation in this case.
SOLUTION - 1 star: A spectacular failure. James commits the ultimate 'sin' in the world of murder mysteries: she introduces a new character at almost the end of the book. Things change so dramatically and quickly that the first 2/3rds of the book (and 10 pages of my notes) were rendered pointless.
SUMMARY: 2.4. P.D. James goes for 'big' here and even though the author does explain the central crime (mostly), withholding final clues is just irritating. And some of my written questions in my notes weren't answered, like, "Felix Hearne, a current suspect. was NOT at the previous party 3 months ago. IF the tragedy had truly began 3 months ago (as James suggested in the opening of the novel) and thus the murder plans had started 3 months ago, when did Felix become involved?" Or, "On page 87, what did Mrs. Maxie ask her son when he called the cops after the crime had been committed?" As I said, I remembered James as being challenging. I remembered correctly. And this may have been the book I read! I'm going to read more of James and take a different approach: maybe I should just forego taking notes. (But I so like to figure 'who-did-it' and notes usually help.) While I do admire her 'big' goal, James' talent as represented here isn't within her grasp.
BOOK 7
I read a P.D.James book years ago, and instead of finding a "Christie-Cozy" relaxing read, I found it to be overly challenging and confusing at times: I had to focus a bit more while reading James than other 'who-did-it' type authors. So, I'm going to give James another try, starting with this, the first in the Dalgiesh series.
CAST=3 stars: Here, Detective Chief Inspector Adam Dalgiesh feels rather flat, but at a first outing, no author wants to give too much away about a series P.I./detective. Mrs. Eleanor Maxie had given a dinner party about 3 months previous to the current time-line in this book. Something happened, we aren't told what. Dr. Charles Epps, Vicar Bernard Hinks, Miss Liddel (warden of St. Mary's Refuge for Girls), Catherine Bowers (an amicable nurse), and Dr. Stephen Maxie were at that party, and it appears Bowers and Maxie had been 'involved." Others had attended that previous party, but here is where things get tricky: some characters in the current time-line/party didn't attend the last one, like Miss Pollock who is 2nd in charge at St. Mary's. I liked that in the edition I read (and this might be true of all editions), a list of characters were provided up front. (The edition of "War and Peace" I read had a nice, thick bookmark with all the main characters and their various names printed on that bookmark, front and back. Great idea, I'd like to see more of that in books with large casts.) Back to "Cover Her Face", I thought the cast solid but no one really stood out. (Well, other than the person who may or may not have been standing on a ladder...sorry, bad pun, couldn't help it.)
ATMOSPHERE/PLACE - 2 stars: The Martingale house might be fabulous, might be falling apart, we just don't know. There is a church function. One character's bedroom is initially described as a big, functional nursery with no personal belongings. Later, when Dalgiesh questions the character, we learn there had been figurines on a windowsill which are now broken. Did James realize only late in the book she needed decorative figurines to be broken to advance the plot. Or was the room decorated by the inhabitant as the novel progressed? It's impossible (well, for me) to tell. Given this novel is James first in the series, I did get the impression she was feeling her way through: thus my 2-star rating for this element.
PLOT/CRIME - 4 stars: During the current time-line/house party, "X" is strangled. That's rather common, but James does add a locked-room mystery to the murder, so I'm adding a star for a 4-star plot/crime element. In addition, the author opens the novel with what is either a great red herring or a big clue to the solution itself: "Exactly 3 months before the killing at Martingale, Mrs. Maxie gave a dinner party....[She'd] looked back on that spring evening as the opening scene of tragedy." You decide: are the clues in the past, or in the present? And of those people who attended or did not attend that party, which of them might be the killer in the current time-line. Great potential here for a mind-stretching exercise!
INVESTIGATION - 2 stars. Dagliesh has his work cut out for him. He must interview a lot of people, then re-interview them. He digs deep. But here is my problem: I have eleven (yes, 11) pages of notes and questions. Like a list of people who arrived Friday evening for the weekend party just before dinner, then who arrived later Friday night, then the arrivals on Saturday morning. For the Friday dinner, for example, Dagliesh knows Dr. Maxie had arrived late but Catherine (his romantic love interest?) had arrived early. Sunday morning, someone has a headache and takes what appears to be aspirin, but is Sommeil. I could go on and on. Is the need for 11 pages of notes indicative of a good mystery, or does that mean James didn't really have a specific goal? I'll go with the latter explanation in this case.
SOLUTION - 1 star: A spectacular failure. James commits the ultimate 'sin' in the world of murder mysteries: she introduces a new character at almost the end of the book. Things change so dramatically and quickly that the first 2/3rds of the book (and 10 pages of my notes) were rendered pointless.
SUMMARY: 2.4. P.D. James goes for 'big' here and even though the author does explain the central crime (mostly), withholding final clues is just irritating. And some of my written questions in my notes weren't answered, like, "Felix Hearne, a current suspect. was NOT at the previous party 3 months ago. IF the tragedy had truly began 3 months ago (as James suggested in the opening of the novel) and thus the murder plans had started 3 months ago, when did Felix become involved?" Or, "On page 87, what did Mrs. Maxie ask her son when he called the cops after the crime had been committed?" As I said, I remembered James as being challenging. I remembered correctly. And this may have been the book I read! I'm going to read more of James and take a different approach: maybe I should just forego taking notes. (But I so like to figure 'who-did-it' and notes usually help.) While I do admire her 'big' goal, James' talent as represented here isn't within her grasp.
May 16, 2020
Cover Her Face is the first murder-mystery in the Dalgleish series and my first reading of the series. At present, I'm having mixed feelings about the book. Not quite sure if I enjoyed it really. The story was pretty straight for me and I guessed the murderer quite early. There were some twists and turns in the plot, but not strong enough to cast doubt on my conclusion. That was not a problem of course. The knowledge of the criminal never hinders my enjoyment of the story if it progressed well. And that was my issue - the way the story progressed. There wasn't enough suspension or intrigue to engage me with the story. Something was lacking - I think it is the excitement, and I couldn't connect with it entirely as I would have liked.
I liked Adam Dalgleish, however. He was sort of the modern detective I would like - clever, cool, patient, detached in his work, but underneath humane. He struck me quite a contrast with the two fictional detectives I'm acquainted with - Holmes and Poirot - both were rather eccentric, self-important, and proud. Although I loved them both, they are more fantastical to me than Dalgliesh, who was more human, more real.
This first disappointment will not stop me with continuing the series and I'm more hopeful of the rest. After all, we have to give a concession for a debut.
I liked Adam Dalgleish, however. He was sort of the modern detective I would like - clever, cool, patient, detached in his work, but underneath humane. He struck me quite a contrast with the two fictional detectives I'm acquainted with - Holmes and Poirot - both were rather eccentric, self-important, and proud. Although I loved them both, they are more fantastical to me than Dalgliesh, who was more human, more real.
This first disappointment will not stop me with continuing the series and I'm more hopeful of the rest. After all, we have to give a concession for a debut.
May 15, 2019
This introduction to the Adam Dalgliesh series is a cross between an English country house mystery and a police procedural. It tends to feel more like the former since the detective is mostly absent and the family members seem central. Sally Jupp, a household employee with a secretive past, dies at the hands of a killer in an apparently locked room. Neither Sally nor the family members were likable. I would prefer more involvement from the police detective. I listened to the audio version read by Penelope Dellaporta who did a good job capturing family voices.
September 20, 2019
Well this series definitely intrigues me. I ended up reading a short story starring this character last year or the year before for Festive Tasks and then I ended up trying to start a stand alone with him and didn't realize it wasn't the first book. So I put it away and forget about reading this series until now. I have to say that P.D. James does a great job with all of the characters that are introduced, but the book starts off very slowly. It reminds me of some of Agatha Christie works, especially with a main character (Adam Dalgliesh) rounding up all of the suspects and explaining everything and revealing the murderer. I do like books that take place after World War II. You get to see an England that is still unsure of what direction it will go. We have some prejudices here that leak out when anyone discusses the murder victim.
"Cover Her Face" is the first book introducing Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard. The book starts off though following the Maxie family, their friends, and servants. The matriarch of the family hires a young unmarried single mother named Sally Jupp to help with Mrs. Maxie's bedridden husband. Some of the family members get a glimpse here and there of Sally's true nature (she seems sly and also full of malice towards Mrs. Maxie's daughter Deborah and seems to be flirting or something else with her son, Stephen). After the local fete though, Sally announces that Stephen Maxie has proposed to her. The following morning when they are unable to waken her, and realizing that the bedroom door is barred, Stephen and a friend of Deborah, Felix, climb through a window and find that Sally has been strangled. Then enters Dalgliesh who methodically questions every member of the household and then even the local doctor, vicar, and the previous employers and family members of Sally.
I thought that Dalgliesh at times was a bit too cold. We are given bare bone facts about him, but I wanted more. The Maxie family and their friends were interesting. We get some details on their loyal servant Martha, a woman who believes she has an understanding with Stephen Maxie, Catherine Bowers. And a man who hopes to marry Deborah, Felix Hearne.
I think we jumped around a bit too much to get a handle on everyone. We are given glimpses of people here and there, but there are too many things left dangling for me as a reader. For example, there is enough said about Stephen Maxie that I wonder if he is being portrayed as asexual or not. Another example is the character of Felix, we find out that is on edge being around any type of police, but I wouldn't consider the Gestapo and Scotland Yard along the same lines. So there were just things like that which confused me a bit while reading.
The flow of the book takes a long while to get going. I think that James wanted to make sure she set the scene, but it takes it a long while to get going and I was confused about who was who at first.
The setting of a post War World II England (this takes place in the 1960s) was interesting. You definitely get a sense that the Maxie and others see themselves as higher class based on previous riches the family experienced. However, you can see that the family is barely supporting itself and you have some characters slamming death duties.
The ending leaves a surprising romantic opening for Dalgliesh.
"Cover Her Face" is the first book introducing Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard. The book starts off though following the Maxie family, their friends, and servants. The matriarch of the family hires a young unmarried single mother named Sally Jupp to help with Mrs. Maxie's bedridden husband. Some of the family members get a glimpse here and there of Sally's true nature (she seems sly and also full of malice towards Mrs. Maxie's daughter Deborah and seems to be flirting or something else with her son, Stephen). After the local fete though, Sally announces that Stephen Maxie has proposed to her. The following morning when they are unable to waken her, and realizing that the bedroom door is barred, Stephen and a friend of Deborah, Felix, climb through a window and find that Sally has been strangled. Then enters Dalgliesh who methodically questions every member of the household and then even the local doctor, vicar, and the previous employers and family members of Sally.
I thought that Dalgliesh at times was a bit too cold. We are given bare bone facts about him, but I wanted more. The Maxie family and their friends were interesting. We get some details on their loyal servant Martha, a woman who believes she has an understanding with Stephen Maxie, Catherine Bowers. And a man who hopes to marry Deborah, Felix Hearne.
I think we jumped around a bit too much to get a handle on everyone. We are given glimpses of people here and there, but there are too many things left dangling for me as a reader. For example, there is enough said about Stephen Maxie that I wonder if he is being portrayed as asexual or not. Another example is the character of Felix, we find out that is on edge being around any type of police, but I wouldn't consider the Gestapo and Scotland Yard along the same lines. So there were just things like that which confused me a bit while reading.
The flow of the book takes a long while to get going. I think that James wanted to make sure she set the scene, but it takes it a long while to get going and I was confused about who was who at first.
The setting of a post War World II England (this takes place in the 1960s) was interesting. You definitely get a sense that the Maxie and others see themselves as higher class based on previous riches the family experienced. However, you can see that the family is barely supporting itself and you have some characters slamming death duties.
The ending leaves a surprising romantic opening for Dalgliesh.
February 12, 2008
I read this book EONS ago but had totally forgotten the plot, the mystery and the killer, so it was truly like reading it for the first time. Now I'm interested enough to reread more of my books by this author. If you haven't read it, go get a copy. It's a great book, a great mystery, filled with enough suspects and red herrings to keep the most avid mystery fan interested through the entire book. I thought I had it figured out but I was so off the mark it wasn't funny.
brief summary, no spoilers
Sally Jupp is a very attractive, unwed mother who has been taken on as a maid in the Maxie household. Sally has come from a home for unwed mothers and lives at the house with her infant son. Every year the church holds an annual celebration (a fete); this year, the day after the proceedings finds Sally dead at unknown hands, behind locked doors. Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard must figure out who killed her, but there are many motives and many suspects to rule out before he can do his job.
As I said, an awesome book, one I very highly recommend. Mystery readers, especially those who enjoy a good British whodunit, will really enjoy this one. It is NOT a cozy, so prepare to spend some time with it!
brief summary, no spoilers
Sally Jupp is a very attractive, unwed mother who has been taken on as a maid in the Maxie household. Sally has come from a home for unwed mothers and lives at the house with her infant son. Every year the church holds an annual celebration (a fete); this year, the day after the proceedings finds Sally dead at unknown hands, behind locked doors. Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard must figure out who killed her, but there are many motives and many suspects to rule out before he can do his job.
As I said, an awesome book, one I very highly recommend. Mystery readers, especially those who enjoy a good British whodunit, will really enjoy this one. It is NOT a cozy, so prepare to spend some time with it!
April 22, 2020
Много скучна и безинтересна история... очаквах много повече.
June 30, 2023
Cover Her Face (Adam Dagliesh, #1) by P.D. James. CD
Introducing Adam Dagliesh. This was my first book by this author, but it most definitely won't be my last. This author writes/wrote with the splendor reminiscent of the golden age of mysteries. The depth of her words and the characters brought me into the excitement of this emotional mystery. The narrator/performer John Franklyn-Robbins brought the characters to life.
Sally Jupp was far from being an innocent although she appeared as a lithe childlike often times mischievous sprite of a young woman. So lovely to look at and yet deep hatred lies within her heart and her actions. She was hired at Mattingale straight out of a home for unwed mother's. That didn't sit well with some especially the mistress of Mattingale Mrs. Maxie. Confusion followed by animosity and then murder.
Excellent 5 star book. Highly recommended.
Introducing Adam Dagliesh. This was my first book by this author, but it most definitely won't be my last. This author writes/wrote with the splendor reminiscent of the golden age of mysteries. The depth of her words and the characters brought me into the excitement of this emotional mystery. The narrator/performer John Franklyn-Robbins brought the characters to life.
Sally Jupp was far from being an innocent although she appeared as a lithe childlike often times mischievous sprite of a young woman. So lovely to look at and yet deep hatred lies within her heart and her actions. She was hired at Mattingale straight out of a home for unwed mother's. That didn't sit well with some especially the mistress of Mattingale Mrs. Maxie. Confusion followed by animosity and then murder.
Excellent 5 star book. Highly recommended.
May 12, 2012
This was James’ first crime novel, debuting DCI Adam Dalgliesh who gets far less character padding or attention than the victim, suspect pool, or even his accompanying sergeant. I enjoy James’ character building enormously, it’s really her forte, and especially the way she often leaves Dalgliesh to the role of observer, concentrating on the crime rather than the draw of a serialised detective. In Cover her Face, none of the characters are overly likeable, but they are all very strongly presented, their actions, opinions and dialogue very human… if a little dated, in places.
The Maxies have taken in Sally Jupp, single mother, and recent resident of a refuge for women in similar ‘trouble’, to be their maid. Sally proves to be ambitious, secretive and a trouble maker. When she is found dead, the family reaction is more affront than surprise. But the motive that seems obvious dangles just out of the reach of provability… only painstaking assessment of the family and guests’ movements and characters will winnow out the culprit. Good old fashioned detective work, in other words.
I’ve read these out of order over the years, just now coming to the first book, and was surprised to find it so cohesive. It isn’t perfect; for a start this is written to be a puzzler, not a gripping page-turner, but James’ writing skills cover up any small flaws; she’s no less competent a storyteller at book one than book fourteen.
The Maxies have taken in Sally Jupp, single mother, and recent resident of a refuge for women in similar ‘trouble’, to be their maid. Sally proves to be ambitious, secretive and a trouble maker. When she is found dead, the family reaction is more affront than surprise. But the motive that seems obvious dangles just out of the reach of provability… only painstaking assessment of the family and guests’ movements and characters will winnow out the culprit. Good old fashioned detective work, in other words.
I’ve read these out of order over the years, just now coming to the first book, and was surprised to find it so cohesive. It isn’t perfect; for a start this is written to be a puzzler, not a gripping page-turner, but James’ writing skills cover up any small flaws; she’s no less competent a storyteller at book one than book fourteen.
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