Helpful Score: 2
I think this is PD James' best! Complicated and sad.
Helpful Score: 1
Excellent, detailed Adam Dagliesh mystery. A publisher is murdered after a seried of malicious pranks. Lots if twists, turns and thinking.
Helpful Score: 1
One of PD James best mysteries! You must read this one.
Helpful Score: 1
A marvelous tale by the Queen of the English murder mystery.
From Publishers Weekly
A sprawling paean to the Thames River and its London environs, James's 12th novel and latest mystery to feature New Scotland Yard Commander Adam Dalgleish is set in the modern publishing world where traditions may crumble but where such timeless emotions as grief, rage and love prevail. Peverell Press, which occupies the magnificent Innocent House, modeled on the palaces of Venice and built by the firm's founder in 1792, has been plagued by the misdeeds-misplaced manuscripts, lost illustrations-of an unknown "office menace" since the death, nine months earlier, of managing director Henry Peverell. The stakes are upped when a senior editor, recently sacked by the new director Gerard Etienne, kills herself. When Etienne is found dead in the same room, Dalgleish is called in to investigate. He discovers that plenty of people, including the four other partners in the firm and various employees whose jobs are threatened by Etienne's plans to sell Innocent House and modernize the firm, had reason to wish Etienne dead. James (Devices and Desires) gives pride of place here to lush, leisurely descriptions of waterside London and the landscape of the Essex coast; Dalgleish and his assistants seem more observers than participants in this plot that ticks along on its own momentum, driven by the various suspects' motivations and actions to the credible, if not fully prepared for, resolution.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
A sprawling paean to the Thames River and its London environs, James's 12th novel and latest mystery to feature New Scotland Yard Commander Adam Dalgleish is set in the modern publishing world where traditions may crumble but where such timeless emotions as grief, rage and love prevail. Peverell Press, which occupies the magnificent Innocent House, modeled on the palaces of Venice and built by the firm's founder in 1792, has been plagued by the misdeeds-misplaced manuscripts, lost illustrations-of an unknown "office menace" since the death, nine months earlier, of managing director Henry Peverell. The stakes are upped when a senior editor, recently sacked by the new director Gerard Etienne, kills herself. When Etienne is found dead in the same room, Dalgleish is called in to investigate. He discovers that plenty of people, including the four other partners in the firm and various employees whose jobs are threatened by Etienne's plans to sell Innocent House and modernize the firm, had reason to wish Etienne dead. James (Devices and Desires) gives pride of place here to lush, leisurely descriptions of waterside London and the landscape of the Essex coast; Dalgleish and his assistants seem more observers than participants in this plot that ticks along on its own momentum, driven by the various suspects' motivations and actions to the credible, if not fully prepared for, resolution.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
An Adam Dalgliesh Mystery set on the Thames River.
hard to put down!
Innocent House, a mock Venetian palace occupied by Britain's oldest book publisher. Here, after a spate of malicious pranks, someone killed Gerard Etienne, the ruthless managing director, and jammed the office mascot, a stuffed snake, in his mouth. Who wanted Etienne dead? Everyone on staff and several authors too. Now Dagliesh and his two junior detectives begin uncovering the dark private tragedies in the lives of Etienne's mistress and colleagues. But the mystery at Innocent House might prove more primal still -- and too deep, too old, too evil to stop at just one death.
Powerful ending!
vintage James
Not my particular cup of cozy tea, but know that James is very popular so decided to list this after receiving it in a BookBox via BookCrossing.
Never read it.
