Helpful Score: 1
Once I got into this one, I couldn't stop and was very very late meeting my boyfriend. The best of hers that I've read, absorbing and teasing at the same time.
Helpful Score: 1
It's hard to get better than this. Another gripping mystery with fully realized characters, evocative writing and a satisfying ending.
From Booklist: "After 16 novels, James is still able to find insular communities of professionals in which to set her crimes. This time it's the staff of a quirky museum devoted to England between the wars. The piece de resistance of the museum's collection is the Murder Room, in which are gathered artifacts from famous homicides that took place during the interwar years. Naturally, the room plays a crucial role, both as setting and as backstory, when real-life murder comes to the museum. It starts not in the Murder Room but in a garage, where one member of the family-owned museum is incinerated after being doused with petrol. That the victim was lobbying to sell the museum, over the objections of his sister and brother, only adds fuel to a fire that Scotland Yard Commander Adam Dalgleish is asked to extinguish. As always, James delves deeply into the psyches of her characters--in this case, the museum's staff--uncovering not just motives and secrets, the stuff of any crime plot, but also the flesh and bone of personality. Her novels follow a formula in terms of the action and the setting, but her people rise above that pattern, their complexity giving muscle and sinew to the bare skeleton of the classical detective story. And none so much as Dalgleish himself, who now must contend with tremors of "precarious joy" as his feelings for Emma, a Cambridge professor he met in Holy Orders (2001), force a life-changing decision. James, at 83, has mastered the trick of repeating herself in ever-fascinating new ways." Bill Ott, Copyright © American Library Association.
The Murder Room is Jamess most suspenseful, atmospheric novel in years and has no shortage of surprise twists. The New York Times Book Review
Another elegant tale of murder, mystery, human misery and the wonder of loveÉ. James explores the lowest of depravity . . . with the most elegant prose. --USA Today
Riveting . . . exquisite, absorbing. . . . The Murder Room possesses everything we desire, no, long for, from James. --The Miami Herald
The Murder Room is Jamess most suspenseful, atmospheric novel in years and has no shortage of surprise twists. The New York Times Book Review
Another elegant tale of murder, mystery, human misery and the wonder of loveÉ. James explores the lowest of depravity . . . with the most elegant prose. --USA Today
Riveting . . . exquisite, absorbing. . . . The Murder Room possesses everything we desire, no, long for, from James. --The Miami Herald
Love all PD James Dagleish books . This is the lates paperback issued
A murder mystery set in England. This national bestseller is a "murder she wrote" kind of book involving a museum, a dysfunctional family and a set of wacky museum workers. Two bodies show up early on mimicking historical murders portrayed in the museum's "murder room." A third attempt is made. You will not guess whodunnit.
gritty contemporary british murder mystery
Great read by the fireplace.
Another elegant tale of murder, mystery, human misery and the wonder of love..
THESE ARE ALWAYS GREAT
Another Adam Dalgliesh mystery which equals in excitement his other adventures.
One of PD James' classics...
The new Adam Dalgliesh. Full of surprises.
Misty P. (hyacinthgardengirl) reviewed The Murder Room (Adam Dalgliesh, Bk 12) on + 9 more book reviews
Compelling murder mystery...one of James' finest.
Good British murder/mystery.
Neither the mystery nor the detective present James's followers with anything truly new in her latest Adam Dalgliesh novel (after 2001's Death in Holy Orders), which opens, like other recent books in the series, with an extended portrayal of an aging institution whose survival is threatened by one person, who rapidly becomes the focus of resentment and hostility. Neville Dupayne, a trustee of the Dupayne Museum, a small, private institution devoted to England between the world wars, plans to veto its continuing operation. After many pages of background on the museum's employees, volunteers and others who would be affected by the trustee's unpopular decision, Neville meets his end in a manner paralleling a notorious historical murder exhibited in the museum's "Murder Room." MI5's interest in one of the people connected with the crime leads to Commander Dalgleish and his team taking on the case.
Very good murder mystery set in and around London in a museum for the years of 1919-1939. The Murder Room refers to murders that happened in London during those years. Very well written.
P.D. James is one of my favorite mystery authors and Adam Dalgliesh is an excellent detective. I've never been to England but love stories that take place there, so that's part of the appeal for me. The characters are well drawn and interesting, and the mystery compelling until the end. (I rarely guess whodunnit!) I recommend it.
Another masterful work of psychologial intricacy by P.D. James. Adam Dalglish is in the throes of making a decision about his love life and at the same time is searching for a murderer who has committed two murders in the Dupayne Museum and is destined to kill again.
When someone says 'murder mystery' to me, this is pretty much exactly what I think of. Very much within the classic tropes of the genre, but set in contemporary London, in this book James' police inspector, Dalgliesh, is assigned to investigate a murder that occured on the grounds of a small and obscure museum. The museum was in danger of closing - and the dead man was in favor of that closure, against his siblings' wishes. But did his siblings care strongly enough to kill him? Or was there another person with motivation - someone from the museum's small staff of odd and peculiar characters? Or someone from the deceased's private life as a psychologist?
When someone else turns up dead, things begin to seem more and more complex...
I thought the book was rather long, for its content, but reasonably well-done.
When someone else turns up dead, things begin to seem more and more complex...
I thought the book was rather long, for its content, but reasonably well-done.
An Adam Dalgliesh Mystery
CMDR DALGLIESH MUST SOLVE A MURDER COMMITTED IN A MUSEUM DEDICATED TO FAMOUS MURDERERS.
Good read, James fans will enjoy this outing of her Scotland yard dectectives.
This is NOT one of the Christian mysteries I usually read. It was well written and free from distracting abusive language. The plot was engaging, although some of the aspects were abhorrent. I was not able to solve the mystery for certain before it was revealed.
Quality of writing continues to be good.
Thomas F. (hardtack) -
I feel somewhat sorry for Maggie M. and her experience (see her review), but only because I had the same experience. After reading about 60-70 pages of this book, I began to wonder if P.D. Jones was really the writer.
Then, after P.J. Jones had set the stage by describing all the characters, the pace immediately picked up and it was a P.D. James murder-mystery novel again. After two or three sittings I realized I was almost two-thirds of the way through the 400 page book. There are three victims in the book, in fact the book sections are divided by 'victims.' Ms. James threw me a loop as to her third victim, and the novel had an interesting resolution.
I have two more books to read in the Adam Dalgliesh series, and then (Alas!) its over.
Then, after P.J. Jones had set the stage by describing all the characters, the pace immediately picked up and it was a P.D. James murder-mystery novel again. After two or three sittings I realized I was almost two-thirds of the way through the 400 page book. There are three victims in the book, in fact the book sections are divided by 'victims.' Ms. James threw me a loop as to her third victim, and the novel had an interesting resolution.
I have two more books to read in the Adam Dalgliesh series, and then (Alas!) its over.
Trade sized (aka larger) paperback
