- Hardcover: 352 pages
- Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group; 1 edition (18 Nov 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0307270777
- ISBN-13: 978-0307270771
- Product Dimensions: 16.7 x 3.7 x 24.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (130 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,169,722 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Private Patient (Adam Dalgliesh Mystery)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Given the astonishing length of the writing career of PD James (her first novel was published in 1962), it is perhaps not surprising that her work often consciously refers back to an earlier era of British crime writing -- but it's none-the worse for that. In fact, James' clever and affectionate reinventions of the devices and conventions of that era afford a particular pleasure -- as is the case with her latest, The Private Patient.
Uncompromising investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn has booked herself into the Chandler Powell private clinic in Dorset. She has decided to remove a disfiguring facial scar, and is looking forward to what she hopes will be a new life after the surgery. But Rhoda will not leave the clinical alive – she is killed. After her murder, Commander Adam Dalgliesh is summoned to investigate. As he begins to examine suspects, scene and motives, a second death occurs, and Dalgliesh finds himself faced with one of the most complex and challenging mysteries of his career.
In many ways, The Private Patient has the structure of a novel from the golden age of crime fiction, and James is well aware of the very best writing from that era (including Cyril Hare, who James succeeded as premier crime writer for her publisher, Faber). Needless to say, she freights in a very modern level of psychological investigation, more penetrating than that of her great predecessors. If the novel seems less initially engaging than other recent work by the author, there is perhaps a subtle agenda here: James is avoiding the more obvious reader-grabbing tactics to present a low-key investigation of character than she has chosen to deal with in recent books. If a little more patience is required than usual, the result of this understated approach pays dividends. And admirers of James (and her doughty detective Dalgliesh) will be prepared to be flexible for the pleasures of the cogently handled narrative here. --Barry Forshaw --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
109 of 117 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
If you love PD James you already know what to expect: the English countryside at its most mysterious and threatening; descriptions of London and its twistings and turnings; a strange, dysfunctional group of suspects bound together by professional ties, rivalries, jealousies and secrets; and most of all an intricately-constructed plot.
There's all of that on offer in this book. P.D.James is Britain's Great Grandma of Crime, and despite now being 88 has just turned out a new novel featuring the restrained and intellectual detective Adam Dalgleish. Dorset is the setting, amongst sinister standing stones that feature on the cover: it is midwinter and the trees are bare. Just the moment for a violent death in a private plastic surgery clinic. The murder victim is an investigative journalist, strangled after having a mysterious scar removed - whose secrets has she disturbed?
P.D. James likes to focus on institutions, like the forensics clinic of "Death of an Expert Witness" or Peverell Pres, the gothic publishing house that featured in "Original Sin". The upmarket cosmetic surgery clinic in this book is another such creation, with lots of secrets under the surface. There's lots about Miskin, who I really like, and more development of Dalgleish's relationship with Emma. I don't want to give away any plot details in a review, so please forgive me for being sketchy about the book's actual events, but let me just say the book wraps up very neatly. And ends on a good note...
This is a proper old-fashioned English detective story where the picture is slowly pieced together through a kind of fugal repetition of themes, including a returning image of time that unites the novel. It has James's distinctive signature style: precise description of rooms and things seen, careful enumeration of conversations, and hanging over it all a sort of brooding sense of life's darkness.
Though she can never restrain herself from having the obligatory pop at the Labour government (a total of 4 by page 85, but she's a Tory peer so it's not that surprising), the book is a real treat. If you are looking for the flash bang wallop of Kathy Reichs or Patricia Cornwell, look elsewhere. More for devotees of Wallander or Martin Beck, then, than Karin Slaughter.
I love PD James and I think this is a very good one. Quiet, restrained, marvellous.
There's all of that on offer in this book. P.D.James is Britain's Great Grandma of Crime, and despite now being 88 has just turned out a new novel featuring the restrained and intellectual detective Adam Dalgleish. Dorset is the setting, amongst sinister standing stones that feature on the cover: it is midwinter and the trees are bare. Just the moment for a violent death in a private plastic surgery clinic. The murder victim is an investigative journalist, strangled after having a mysterious scar removed - whose secrets has she disturbed?
P.D. James likes to focus on institutions, like the forensics clinic of "Death of an Expert Witness" or Peverell Pres, the gothic publishing house that featured in "Original Sin". The upmarket cosmetic surgery clinic in this book is another such creation, with lots of secrets under the surface. There's lots about Miskin, who I really like, and more development of Dalgleish's relationship with Emma. I don't want to give away any plot details in a review, so please forgive me for being sketchy about the book's actual events, but let me just say the book wraps up very neatly. And ends on a good note...
This is a proper old-fashioned English detective story where the picture is slowly pieced together through a kind of fugal repetition of themes, including a returning image of time that unites the novel. It has James's distinctive signature style: precise description of rooms and things seen, careful enumeration of conversations, and hanging over it all a sort of brooding sense of life's darkness.
Though she can never restrain herself from having the obligatory pop at the Labour government (a total of 4 by page 85, but she's a Tory peer so it's not that surprising), the book is a real treat. If you are looking for the flash bang wallop of Kathy Reichs or Patricia Cornwell, look elsewhere. More for devotees of Wallander or Martin Beck, then, than Karin Slaughter.
I love PD James and I think this is a very good one. Quiet, restrained, marvellous.
32 of 35 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
P.D. James is 88, and if the thought of churning out 400-page novels at that age impresses you, spare a thought for her detective, Adam Dalgliesh, who's been wrestling culprits to the floor since 1962. I can only assume he's been drinking the same elixir as James Bond, and gets younger and more muscular with each new case.
The setting for The Private Patient is, naturally, a decaying outpost of provincial privilege with a spooky and claustrophobic atmosphere. Rhoda Gradwyn, a fearless investigative journalist with a fair tally of accumulated enemies, books in to the private Dorset clinic of her plastic surgeon, George Chandler-Powell. The purpose of the visit: the removal of a deep scar across Gradwyn's cheek, inflicted during childhood. The operation is completed successfully. But the following night, bandages still wrapped round her face, Rhoda is strangled in her bed.
Helpfully enough, the clinic, a beautiful yet intimidating Tudor manor house, is an enclosed space chock full of suspects. Two of the staff have longstanding grudges against Gradwyn, another has a dark past that has caused her to assume a new identity, one of Rhoda's friends stands to gain from her will, and Chandler-Powell's two medical assistants both have reasons for wanting to ruin the surgeon's reputation. So whodunnit? And what is the significance of the ancient stone circle outside the manor, where a witch was once burned, and where strange lights were seen on the night of the murder?
The Private Patient is a novel resolute in its conformity to the conventions and clichés of its genre, but it's a class act nonetheless -- the work of a novelist rightly confident of the continuing power and relevance of the old Agatha Christie format. The story thrills and entices, like it should, but it's also familiar and pleasurable, a book to be dipped into at leisure rather than one to be read from a grim compulsion to get to the end. James is simply a terrific writer: elegant, erudite and measured.
The setting for The Private Patient is, naturally, a decaying outpost of provincial privilege with a spooky and claustrophobic atmosphere. Rhoda Gradwyn, a fearless investigative journalist with a fair tally of accumulated enemies, books in to the private Dorset clinic of her plastic surgeon, George Chandler-Powell. The purpose of the visit: the removal of a deep scar across Gradwyn's cheek, inflicted during childhood. The operation is completed successfully. But the following night, bandages still wrapped round her face, Rhoda is strangled in her bed.
Helpfully enough, the clinic, a beautiful yet intimidating Tudor manor house, is an enclosed space chock full of suspects. Two of the staff have longstanding grudges against Gradwyn, another has a dark past that has caused her to assume a new identity, one of Rhoda's friends stands to gain from her will, and Chandler-Powell's two medical assistants both have reasons for wanting to ruin the surgeon's reputation. So whodunnit? And what is the significance of the ancient stone circle outside the manor, where a witch was once burned, and where strange lights were seen on the night of the murder?
The Private Patient is a novel resolute in its conformity to the conventions and clichés of its genre, but it's a class act nonetheless -- the work of a novelist rightly confident of the continuing power and relevance of the old Agatha Christie format. The story thrills and entices, like it should, but it's also familiar and pleasurable, a book to be dipped into at leisure rather than one to be read from a grim compulsion to get to the end. James is simply a terrific writer: elegant, erudite and measured.
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have long been a fan of PD James, and looked forward with relish to this latest in the series of Adam Dalgliesh mysteries. I was disappointed. We learn in the first paragraph of the first page who is to die, but we have to wait until we're a third of the way in for the first murder. Before we even meet Dalgliesh and his team, we have to endure the inconsequential prattlings of the first victim, as we try to understand what makes her tick, although this effort for the reader is not rewarded by the writer - this early exposition has little bearing on what comes next. There are various interviews with suspects and informants, all undertaken by members of the police who have become mere caricatures. I struggle now to remember all their names, so little did they matter to me. Dalgliesh is at his most ponderous, and even the odd Emma Lavenham interludes do little to endear him to us, as he seems to have become even more full of his own importance. The denouement is signposted from early on, so I, for one, had no trouble in identifying the eventual murderer, and when the guilty party was revealed, the fact that there had to be a long written confession, identified for me just how poorly this book had been written. This book felt to me as if it had been written by someone paid by the word. It was turgid, with little in the way of suspense, and vast tracts seemingly included to pad out the story, and which did nothing to increase the pace. I was amused to see that PD James managed to use her favourite three words: iconoclastic, atavistic, and numinous, as she does in most of her novels. All in all, this is one to avoid.The Private Patient The Private Patient (Adam Dalgliesh Mystery)
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Formulaic and rather dull
I bought this second-hand from a charity shop ( sorry, Amazon! ) as I hadn't read it and have, in the past, admired and enjoyed other novels by this author. Read more
Published 1 month ago by B. Scott
The Private Patient
Well written and excite story. Moves on at a good pace; quite atmospheric. Keeps you interested until the end. A bit political in parts.
Published 1 month ago by Jeremy Cox
Never read pd James's before never will again
My grandma recommended this book on cd and I thought ok give it ago but it was to highbrow for me, Boring insufferbul charters the only one I had any interest in was George... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Mr C I Kingston
a great writer, but not her best book.
Oh P.D. (if I may...)
If P.D. James wrote 'literary' as opposed to crime fiction, and/or wasn't female, she would be seen as one of Britain's greatest writers. Read more
If P.D. James wrote 'literary' as opposed to crime fiction, and/or wasn't female, she would be seen as one of Britain's greatest writers. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Lola Bergen
Sorry this is awful and one of her worst
This book is nearly 400 pages in length and frankly if you were told the main circumstances of the murder on one page you could genuinely miss the first 200 pages and not miss... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Cotswold
Disjointed and lacking tension
A journalist attending a private cosmetic surgery to get a childhood scar removed is murdered the night following her operation. Read more
Published 9 months ago by RSM
Confused mess...
A confused mess of sub-plots which detracted from the main plot itself. Where was the high-quality police work? Where was the culmination of Dalgleish's detective genius? Read more
Published 10 months ago by C. E. Clark
A Good Partner to Drive With
This is a very good dramatisation of a novel. Atmospheric and engaging with some decent acting that brings the plot together.
Published 11 months ago by Lewis Graham
Enjoyable, but nothing special
This crime story is rather predictable and, for those with high expectations of P.D. James, a little disappointing. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Lance Mitchell
state of book
I am rather disappointed with this book. Not with the content. P.D. James is a fine author. I am disappointed with the condition of the book. Read more
Published 16 months ago by A. Hof
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