Devices and Desires

Devices and Desires is the 8th Adam Dalgliesh detective novel by P.D. James. I kept feeling like I'd read this one before, but then I realized I had seen the tv presentation. This is an interesting enough book, but if this were my first foray into the Dalgliesh world I don't think I'd plan to read much more.

There's a crime fiction author mentioned in the book -H.R.F. Keating- as a favorite of a retired pastor and his wife. He's a prolific author, but I'd never noticed him before. He died last year. Elgar's Cello Concerto is also mentioned as the music Dalgliesh plays as he sorts through his late aunt's photos. You can listen to that here:


EW concludes

Can so many well-turned paragraphs and craftsmanlike chapters really add up to a bad book? They can and they do, when the motor's missing. C+

I have blog posts on these:

#2 A Mind to Murder
#5 The Black Tower
#7 A Taste for Death
#9 Original Sin
#12 The Murder Room
#13 The Lighthouse

and An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, which features an appearance by Dalgliesh.