The Private Patient
PD James
Penguin
498 pages
Rs299
It is always something of a relief when PD James’ latest novel is out — and not just because she’s nearly 90. For nothing’s as relaxing as the opportunity to sink into classic English detective fiction, knowing even as the bodies pile gruesomely centre stage, that there will be light applause at the end.
The 14th mystery featuring poet-detective Adam Dalgliesh, The Private Patient promises to be something of a masterpiece in its carefully detailed setting. But strangely this is not James’ finest hour, far from it, in fact.
Typically, nothing reeks of atmosphere quite like an English country house, and James gives us more with the eerie pre-historic Cheverell Stones visible from the window. Even the line-up of suspects in her now-characteristic closed-room style of investigation is promising.
The victim Rhoda Gradwyn is a ‘notorious investigative journalist’ with a hidden past.She checks into the posh Cheverell Manor in Dorset to have a ghastly facial scar removed, remarking mysteriously that she no longer has need of it.
Naturally, the suspects gather in the grand library after the event, to be interviewed: among them, the successful surgeon Dr Chandler-Powell and Helena, the Plantagenet-faced ex-heiress of Cheverell Manor who returned as administrator when her father was forced to sell the house. The Westhalls, brother and sister, are also dubious, coming into a huge inheritance after the death of a Dickensian old miser. Rounding it off is the sulky young maid Sharon. To this assembly comes the handsome but shiftless actor-entrepreneur Robin Boyton, with an agenda he will not reveal.
The Manor seems ready to explode with intrigue. But indifference permeates the book, at odds with the hot flush of murder.
Characters seem to pass information back and forth mechanically.
The biggest disappointment is Adam Dalgliesh, old school gallant who is wooden even in the face of a crisis with his fiance.
One would expect The Private Patient to be a step forward in the development of Adam’s character; he gets engaged and seems poised to retire. Possibly PD James speaks through him when he wonders “Perhaps I’ve had enough of murder.”
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