REVIEW
Original Sin by P.D.James
Penguin Pbk £5.99
Innocent House, built in 1830 on the banks of the Thames in the style of the Venetian palace
of Doge Francesco Fascari, home to the long established publishing house Peverell Press, is
now the scene of suicide, murder and intrigue. Of the intrigue and malicious or mischievous acts Dalgliesh learns more whilst lunching at the invitation of an acquaintance and writer of true crime at the exclusively masculine Cadaver Club, main qualification for membership being a professional interest in murder. Here, in the Snug, they are served by an idiosyncratic housekeeper who used to be a matron and still wears the uniform of a nurse
complete with "goffered cap and streamers". Original Sin is full of attention gripping detail. Mandy, the temp, in the launch crossing the Thames, hears from the waterman how Cleopatra's Needle was towed from its home in front of the Temple of Isis in Heliopolis and erected on the river bank in 878 - its twin in Central Park, New York - and how a fine flowering plant, in a cottage window, was brought back from Brazil by a sailor and sold for £8 to a market gardener, James Lee, in 1789, who then made his fortune taking cuttings
and selling them for a guinea each.... the fuchsia.
At the scene of a post-mortem whether or not the Obese refrigerator will be needed and the kind of music played to accompany the work in progress are issues mentioned. Dalgliesh remembers, as a young detective, finding inspiration for one of his best poems whilst observing the work of Pathologist Doc McGregor. The man, a rigid Presbyterian, insisted on an air of sanctity over the proceedings and rebuked a technician, "I'll have no laughter in my mortuary. It's no a frog I'm dissecting here."
And this is the kind of treat the reader gets for starters, quite apart from the business proper of the novel - the suicide and then the murder where the bodies are discovered in the little archives office on the top floor of Innocent House.
James has impeccable style - the plot is clever and tight as always. The motive seems to be fairly obvious but could be shared by a number of the characters. She explores the psychology of each one in depth and trying to guess which it will be in the end is a real challenge for the reader.
Some may think that Dalgliesh keeps rather a low profile in Ms James' latest novel. I found the presence of the charming, suave Commander Dalgliesh pervasive throughout the book, even though he often delegates, in a perfectly proper way, to his subordinates. An excellent novel - I thoroughly enjoyed it and so will thousands of others.
(P.E.D)