Cover Her Face, by PD James
Another Inspector Dalgliesh mystery, a light little thing of 200 pages. What is in some ways a satisfyingly traditional country house murder mystery, in other ways feels very dated, given that a large part of the plot revolves around the scandal of single mothers. It's an easy enough read, but Dalgliesh is rather incidental to the story, almost more of a background character. The focus is on the suspects, and the point of view moves from one to the other in turn - we mainly encounter the police through their eyes, rather than the other way round. Therefore, there is no sense of a case being unravelled and solved, Dalgliesh just rocks up at the end with the solution, dropping in things he's found out in the meantime, away from the narrative, which leaves you feeling a bit cheated. I prefer the books he's at the heart of to this approach, although he's not the most engaging of detectives at the best of times. Still, it's always good to have found a new series to read and this is a harmless enough way of passing an evening.
posted by Izzy @ 4:14 pm
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