The Lighthouse (Paperback)

Combe, a lonely island off of the Cornish coast of England, where senior VIPs from all over England's aristocracy come to convalesce, is the site of a horrible murder of the acclaimed writer, Nathan Oliver. The British government wants to use the island as a place for an important conference in a few months, so they call in Commander Adam Dalgliesh to solve the murder as quickly and efficiently as possible. He brings his assistant, Detective Inspector Kate Miskin, and his new Sergeant, Francis Benton-Smith, to help him. Motives abound for most of the guests and staff on the island, and it's up to Dalgliesh to find the truth before anybody else happens to fall victim. This is complicated by a disease outbreak, one that brings Miskin to the fore, and tests her resolve as well as her investigative talent.

It's not that I didn't enjoy The Lighthouse. In fact, I raced through it as I was wanted to know what happened. Even in James' worst books, her grasp of interesting character interaction makes her a joy to read. However, that's not quite enough to save this plot that is much less intricate than I'm used to from her, solved in an apparent revelation by Dalgliesh when he's lying ill. James spends almost a quarter of the book introducing us to the characters on the island, setting up the murder, and giving us all the different motives for the various characters. Being a big fan of Dalgliesh in action, this sequence started to really drag, saved only by James' mastery of her characters.

My understanding from the last two books (which I haven't read) is that James is really starting to get into the personal lives of her main characters, which explains the rather lengthy prologue introducing Dalgliesh, Miskin, and Benton-Smith, as well as giving us as some aspects of their latest love affairs as they get ready to go to Combe. While these events are briefly referenced by various thoughts from these characters while they're investigating, only Dalgliesh's romantic life actually has any bearing on the story, and no bearing on the mystery itself. I like hearing about the personal lives of the main characters (that's one thing I like about Elizabeth George), but getting this much information from James was something I wasn't used to. Given the nature of the mystery and the almost perfunctory way that it's solved, I feel like James shortchanged the mystery in order to get this personal information, which is a shame.

On the positive side, though, I have to repeat my love for James' prose and her character work. While I was getting a bit tired of hearing the various female characters having their bustline highlighted in their character description, that was my only fault with it. Dalgliesh is again a wonder to behold, always calm even while his romantic problems sometimes take his thoughts elsewhere, leaving his insides in turmoil. Kate Miskin really comes into her own in The Lighthouse, and I really enjoyed reading about her. She's saddled with a bit of unrequited love of Dalgliesh (something that I'm glad isn't really dwelt on much), but she also greatly respects him, and when she has to take over, she has momentary doubts. She's quickly able to put them aside, though, and it's interesting how she puts her own stamp on the investigation even as she's often wondering what Dalgliesh would do.

The characters on the island are also well done. If I didn't feel it had detracted from space devoted to Dalgliesh and the solving of the mystery, I would have enjoyed the opening quarter of the novel even more. Even as I was chomping at the bit for Dalgliesh to arrive, I found myself sinking into the story of these people on this island, the various relationships and how they all fit together. There are enough red herrings to feed a dolphin, but they're all wonderfully set up by this sequence that leads up to the murder. None of them really annoyed me, and there wasn't one character that I wished James hadn't created, or that I wished she would kill off so I wouldn't have to read about him/her.

One minor bit about the ending did annoy me slightly. Miskin is suddenly saddled with a small romantic entanglement that comes out of nowhere during the epilogue (not even the main story). It's quickly and easily dealt with, as even the character himself realizes that nothing can ever come of it. Is James serializing her novels now, and this will lead somewhere? I truly doubt it, which makes it even more annoying that it rears up out of nowhere. It was unnecessary, especially given her already complicated romantic life.

The Lighthouse is a good mystery, don't get me wrong. Fans of mysteries with interesting characters will love it. However, it's not the best P.D. James out there, and it pales in comparison to some of her better ones (Shroud for a Nightingale is by far her best). James fans will probably enjoy it, but be left a little wanting.

David Roy

The privately owned island of Combe, just off the Cornish coast, has been turned into a place of rest and sanctuary for people - necessarily rich ones - who wish to escape the stresses of their normal every-day lives. As such it is insular, offers almost unlimited privacy, and has a very small staff. Immediately, here is the classic James setting: isolated, full of history, slightly sinister, coming complete with a small clutch of interesting suspects. It's obvious, then, that when acclaimed - and abrasive - writer Nathan Oliver starts trouncing around the island antagonising the other residents and guests, that a murder is going to occur some-time soon... And so it does. One misty morning Oliver is found hanging from the top of the island's lighthouse. And there's no shortage of people who may have wanted him dead...

Nathan was not a popular character. Manipulative for the purposes of his fiction (he loves to observe in order to write... the worst of these instances when he tipped retired priest and ex-alcoholic Adrian Brodey off the wagon and into turmoil) and selfish, he's made himself no fans. He's been trying to oust elderly Emily Holcombe, last of the Holcombe family, from her cottage and is demanding it for himself. He's caused a heated fracas with another visitor, Dr Mark Yelland, a research scientist a character in Oliver's new book bears a strikingly unpleasant resemblance to. He's forbidden his daughter's marriage to his copy-editor, and has created a whole host of other petty enmities. The question, though, is any of them important enough to be a motive for murder? Or is it something else entirely?

Despite James's huge acclaim and popularity, The Lighthouse is not her greatest book. She never fails to create and interesting mystery peopled with interesting suspects, and hasn't here; she never fails to write intelligently and well, and hasn't here; she never fails to engage or provide enjoyment, and hasn't here. But this novel is less inspired than many of her greatest mysteries (A Certain Justice, Original Sin, Innocent Blood), and to an extent there's a feeling of her going through the motions of the form she has made her own: creating the batch of intriguing suspects, giving them each a hazy and interesting past, coming up with a mysterious and claustrophobic setting in which to house the mystery, and giving that too an interesting and hazy past (Combe island has been home to everything from pirates to German soldiers), and then boxing everything together with a nasty murder and an elusive mystery. It's possibly just me, but before she's always managed to provide something extra as well, on top of the mystery, (the philosophical aspects of theology in Death in Holy Orders, for example, or even just an incisive portrait of an enclosed society and the people in it) but here that doesn't really seem to be there. There's a mystery, a bit of history, and that's pretty much it.

Dalgliesh, too, is less engaging than in past outings (and he's never been my favourite detective anyway; he's a bit of a dull fish, really). He's a bit vague, a bit distracted by his [annoying] love-interest, Emma Lavenham, whom he proposed to in the previous book. He does far too much moping for my liking. True, it makes him a rounded and realistic character, but he's not really as interesting while doing it (though, as a positive, it's good to see this new, uncertain side of him).

The two great successes of the book are the portrait of Combe, which is atmospheric as always (even if it's not as grippingly sinister as usual), and the character of Nathan Oliver, who completely dominates the book even though the victim. He's not a pleasant person at all, but he's a completely fascinating one, and it's down to the force of his personality that the reader stays interested during the middle of the book when things get a bit dull. Worry not, though: there are one or two pivotal happenings at about page 200 that breathe new life into the story completely.

Overall, The Lighthouse is a success, but not a big one. It seems a little perfunctory at times, but there's certainly still enough here to make the thing worth buying. Longstanding fans will buy and enjoy as ever, but newcomers should look elsewhere. As ever, James provides a good mystery with a sensible solution, though. I thought I knew whodunnit, but they died on page 250.