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A review by jacki_f
The Private Patient by P.D. James
4.0
The Private Patient is the story of the investigation into the murder of a patient staying at a private medical clinic in the English countryside. The first quarter of the book precedes the murder, and the remainder is about the police investigation of the crime. The book starts quite slowly, with a lot of background on virtually every character (whether central or not), but the atmosphere of foreboding holds your attention and the momentum picks up once the investigation begins.
This is not a thriller. It's about the painstaking business of a murder investigation: laborious research, false leads, conflicting accounts and an emphasis throughout on procedure. In many ways it is reminiscent of the novels of Agatha Christie (right down to the setting in a remote manor house). P D James has lavished the novel with an immense attention to detail, especially in the descriptions of the locations and characters. The result is very satisfying, although somewhat let down by a far-fetched and overly complex resolution.
This is the first book that I have read by P D James. From reading other reviews, I gather that this is not one of her best, but it's a very English and literary read which I enjoyed very much. The central detective, Adam Dalgliesh and his team have apparently appeared in no less than 13 other books, but it made no difference to this reader to be meeting them for the first time.
This is not a thriller. It's about the painstaking business of a murder investigation: laborious research, false leads, conflicting accounts and an emphasis throughout on procedure. In many ways it is reminiscent of the novels of Agatha Christie (right down to the setting in a remote manor house). P D James has lavished the novel with an immense attention to detail, especially in the descriptions of the locations and characters. The result is very satisfying, although somewhat let down by a far-fetched and overly complex resolution.
This is the first book that I have read by P D James. From reading other reviews, I gather that this is not one of her best, but it's a very English and literary read which I enjoyed very much. The central detective, Adam Dalgliesh and his team have apparently appeared in no less than 13 other books, but it made no difference to this reader to be meeting them for the first time.