Reading the Detectives discussion

Welcome to our November 2020 Challenge Read of Death in Holy Orders by P.D. James

Published in 2001, this is the 11th book in the Inspector Adam Dalgliesh series.

When the body of a student of an Anglican theological college is found on the shore of a desolate stretch of coast smothered by a fall of sand, his wealthy father demands that Scotland Yard re-examine the verdict of accidental death. Commander Dalgliesh has visited St Anselm's in his boyhood and, as he is due for a holiday, agrees to pay a visit. He finds himself embroiled in one of the most puzzling cases of his career.

Please feel free to post spoilers in this thread.

Did anybody guess the killer in this one? I didn't - I was on the wrong track until quite late on.

Quite a few GR reviews suggest that the killer's motivation doesn't actually make much sense, and I would agree with that - for me it's one of those books with complicated explanations late on which don't altogether ring true.

Tbh, I was more distracted by PDJ's defences of the paedophile priest who everyone, apart from the murder victim, and including Dalgleish and Emma, think is a lovely kind old man who should never have gone to prison for just fondling a couple of choirboys: someone actually says that because he didn't rape or seduce them, he didn't hurt them... reactionary even for 2001, surely?

But yes, the motive *makes no sense*: he wants the seminary shut down so he kills the archdeacon who is determined to shut it down? He needs his marriage to be confirmed so that his son can inherit, so he kills the ex-nurse who was a witness to the marriage?

Oh, and was that the craziest way of committing suicide ever?: the young ordinant lies down on the beach under a cliff ledge, pokes upwards with a branch of a tree and brings down a fall of sand which suffocates him.

While I enjoyed reading the book I agree that the murderer's motive was, at best, weak. Like other of James' books, the ending was the low point. I also thought the dive off the pier was melodramatic and may have been added only so Dalglish could say "Sadie".

I really hope Karen has an unpleasant life and her brother frees himself from her.

I wasn’t impressed with this book. The setting was too similar to others in the series & the story didn’t feel very realistic. Senior police officers going off to search for a cape - seriously? Going to search the countryside & beach before checking if it was somewhere obvious? By the end it was becoming farcical.

As usual, I seem to have had a different response to this book than the others who have posted here. I guess we all bring our own experiences and viewpoints to the table, which is why reading is so wonderful!
I thought it was far and away the best book yet in the series. The pedophile priest didn't bother me -- she almost had to address the issue since the news about it at the time was so scandalous. Keeping in mind that she wrote this book 20 years ago, there was then not as much known about the problem as there is today. Not addressing it at all would have seemed strange, so she included it, but minimized it to keep it from taking over the entire novel. At least that's how it seemed to me.
Other than that issue, I thought the rest of the story was great.

Carol, same here. I really enjoyed this one - it's always been my favourite in the series. Again, I think we forget how little attention was given to the pedophile issue 20 years ago - times really have changed.

Glad you both enjoyed the book, Carol and Carolien. The abusive priest storyline didn't ruin the novel for me, but I don't really see why she included it at all - I suppose it was to give an extra possible motive in terms of the plot, but I don't think it is dealt with at all adequately.

I was also unpleasantly surprised by her negative comments in this novel on the Macpherson Report, which investigated racism in the Met following the murder of Stephen Lawrence. Hoping there won't be so many comments like this in the next book.

Yes, Judy! I was also surprised at her remarks regarding the Macpherson Report, perhaps more so than down playing the behaviour of the priest. Back in the latter 1990s quite a lot of this behaviour involving the Catholic Church, as well as Scout group leaders, was being reported. The reaction among society and the law seemed initially to be one of denial, and I thought as I read the book this was what James was depicting. It didn’t particularly bother me, nor did it detract from my enjoyment of the book. But, I think if it had been written in more recent times when more is known and attitudes have changed on the subject, I would have found it to be more objectionable.

What I found more bothersome is what seems to have been a lack of substantial motive for the murder, along with the unbelievable form of suicide. So unique I don’t recall anyone in real life employing within method! In fact, I have read Book 3 of this book twice because of the confusion. Maybe I need to watch the TV series for this one to make more sense of parts of it.

I have finished this now and I am slightly torn about it. I think James did try too hard to defend the Church - even Kate Miskin at one point thought Father John had suffered unduly, which seemed a little odd.

The writing was excellent and I did get quite involved with the characters. Agree utterly that Karen was horrible and lacked redeeming qualities, which is often the case with female characters in this series. Especially younger ones.

The whole suffocation beach thing was bizarre. I failed to guess the murderer and thought the ending was weak.

Judy wrote “... I was also unpleasantly surprised by her negative comments in this novel on the Macpherson Report, which investigated racism in the Met following the murder of Stephen Lawrence.”

I may have remembered incorrectly, but didn’t we discuss racism when we read an earlier book in this series? I’m not saying she intended to be racist, but my impression was that she condoned a certain amount of institutional racism perhaps due to her age or background. Sorry if I haven’t explained this very well - I think I’m trying to say that I wasn’t particularly surprised by her negative comments even though I disagree with them.

I finished this book last night and was thinking about how to express what I felt. I agree with most here, that the author defending a pedophile priest was very disturbing. I found it even more bothersome to read how he was defended. Statements like "just fondled" and "He pleaded guilty to misbehavior with two young boys. He didn't rape them, he didn't seduce them, he didn't physically hurt them." really got me wondering how the author even wrote these lines. She could have used a better defense.

I, too, found the motive insubstantial and felt the book tried to use too many topics like incest, the church, racism, art, myths about pigs, etc. Last but not least Dagliesh trying for an arrest as he could not do so in his previous case sounded like he was trying to meet his arrest target for the year.

I find it interesting that I can learn so much factual information from fiction stories! Being from the USA, I had never heard of the Macpherson Report. It just slipped right by me as I read.

Judging from the comments here, it was obviously quite well known and important to readers from the UK. Now, I'll have to go read about it! :-)

I think books do that, Carol. You get to learn the background and social history of places, which so often intrigues you to read on.

I was pleased we got to see Dalgliesh himself showing some emotion in this book.

I was also pleased that Dalgliesh showed emotion. And, like Carol, I never heard of the report so didn't take any note of the reference.

What did everyone think of the new romantic interest for Dalgliesh in this novel, Emma Lavenham? Her surname is the name of one of the most beautiful historic villages in Suffolk, so immediately made me feel positive towards her.

I thought it was nice to see Dalgliesh finding someone he is attracted to - previously we have just had brief mentions of some relationship with Cordelia Gray, the heroine of a couple of other PD James books, and in one book there were a couple of cryptic mentions of another possible relationship, but no detail at all.

I also noticed a couple of mentions of Piers being gay in this book - I don't think that had been mentioned in the previous book. I didn't feel we get to know Piers very well, though.

I agree it was nice to see Dagliesh finally in a possible relationship and I liked Emma.

I missed any reference to Piers sexuality, agree that we don't know him well, and I find him more interesting than the woman sidekick. Hopefully I'll like Dalglish better with a personal life.

I think I must have misunderstood about Piers' sexuality, sorry - I have just had a look back and I don't think he is gay after all. I must have misread one or two passages.

I do agree it would be nice to see Emma turning up some more in the following books - nice also that Dalgliesh seems to have become a bit warmer and more interested in other people in the last couple of books.

This started well but went really down towards the end. It was a big step back from her previous book. I managed to guess the criminal on the second death but wasn't sure he was connected to the later ones till near the end. The motive for the crimes was so ridiculous. I felt she could have done better there. It was a big disappointment after the enjoyment of the previous few novels. The only thing I liked was the setting and Dalgliesh's interest in Emma.

I agree with others that the weakest aspects were the motives for the murders, and the excusing of the sexual abuse. The incestual relationship between Karen and Eric also was received in a ho-hum kind of way. I would imagine it would be rare enough that it would be shocking for even hardened police detectives. I was also surprised how many extremely relevant facts only came out in later, more direct questioning when they knew specifically what to ask for (Eric's presence in the church the night of the murder, the missing cloak). For what is considered to be a crackerjack unit, they sure aren't very good at interviewing suspects. The whole idea is not to ask leading questions, but leaving them open-ended enough to allow the witnesses to drive the conversation (and potentially incriminate themselves). It seems like if they have been more efficient, they could have solved the case in about 200 less pages.

That's true about the incestuous relationship - the police didn't seem too bothered about it, and I don't think they considered it much as a possible murder motive.

Thinking back, I'm surprised that the police weren't bothered about it. I mean, isn't Incest a crime? Perhaps it's not within Scotland Yard's jurisdiction?

Maybe they feel it isn't worth worrying about when investigating murders? But it does seem odd, I agree.

I think Tara’s summary, in line with others, that the weaknesses of this book are the motive for murder and excusing of sexual abuse, is exactly right.

What I enjoyed about this book was the use of the imagery of the sea in connection with religion. Religion was clearly something that James pondered quite a bit, but she ultimately valued cleverness over religion and even sound ethics:

1. I can’t help but think of Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach. In that poem the sea of faith is a withdrawing roar revealing the shingles of the world, a metaphor for loss of faith in the modern world. Here the sea is the world eroding the foundations on which St Anselm’s sits, with it’s demise, and thus that of “clever faith”, inevitable.

2. It would be interesting if James deliberately chose the name St. Anselm’s to reflect Anselm’s ontological argument for the existence of God. This argument was successfully undermined by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason, and it’s formal errors are revealed by modern predicate logic. (As a Christian myself I think there are other arguments that are sound ...)

3. In her rejection of Christian faith, James nevertheless was enthusiastic regarding ethics, but those ethics being clever and nuanced. With her excusing of sexual abuse I wonder if she was thinking of Trollope’s nuanced ethics vs popular sentiment. I’m with Trollope here when it comes to The Warden, for example, but I think her judgement failed her in this case.