Matters Criminous
crime / mystery / detective literature:a critical list with discussions
Crime/Mystery Series: Adam Dalgliesh
Commander Adam Dalgliesh was not unused to being urgently summoned to non-scheduled meetings with unspecified people at inconvenient times, but usually with one purpose in common: he could be confident that somewhere there lay a dead body awaiting his attention.
--The Lighthouse,
P. D. James
P. D. James's Adam Dalgliesh
About the Author
There is an "official" P. D. James web site--actually a sub-site of the Random House site--plus a few ohers, none offering much meat:
- About the Author (Random House)
- P. D. James (Bastulli Mystery Library)
- P. D. James (British Arts Council)
- P. D. James (The Guardian)
More interesting and useful to any seeking insights into James are some on-line interviews with her:
There are various thoughtful articles and critical essays around as well:
About the Character
Aside from occasional reviews of individual books or the BBC television series, there is alsmost nothing on line discussing Dalgliesh as a character; the closest are this one of just a few paragraphs and this blog entry.
(In case you came to this page you are reading from a search engine instead of through its site, I will here repeat the brief remarks on the main mystery/crime page that points here.)
James's novels are thoroughly realistic and correspondingly gritty. Dalgliesh (Commander is a police rank), is a consummate professional, cool and detached, yet with a private side (he is, in fact, a published poet). James pulls off the difficult trick of presenting noir realism in combination with an almost fierce moral posture, a clear line between right and wrong, good and evil. For, as she often notes, it is the distinguishing characteristic of the mystery tale that justice be served, and it is in that that such tales diverge from life: but we turn to them just because we want a vision of a world, however otherwise askew, in which when murder is done, justice can be seen and often--even if not always--also done.
The Books
There are so far a baker's dozen of Dalgliesh novels (there are no Dalgliesh short stories that I know of).
In these lists, the links are all to used-book searches for the title (via Abebooks). Some few can still be found in print new, but not many. As usual, the search results are sorted from lowest price up (note that, as always in used-book searches from this site, the price sort is by actual book price, not total shipped price, though each listing also always shows the true total shipped cost; occasionally, a slightly more expensive title will be slightly cheaper shipped--but the differences are never much and you can easily eyeball those cases.) Most titles represent a number of varying editions, from original hardcovers to late paperback reprints.
The Individual Novels
- Cover Her Face
(1962)
- A Mind to Murder
(1963)
- Unnatural Causes
(1967)
- A Shroud for a
Nightingale (1971)
- The Black Tower
(1975)
- Death of an Expert
Witness (1977)
- A Taste for Death
(1985)
- Devices and Desires
(1990)
- Original Sin
(1995)
- A Certain Justice
(1997)
- Death in Holy Orders
(2001)
- The Murder Room
(2003)
- The Lighthouse
(2005)
- The Private Patient
(2008)
Her Other Detective
James wrote two books about a female privated detective, Cordelia Gray; Commander Dalgliesh makes what might be called "cameo appearances" in both books.
- An Unsuitable Job for a
Woman (1972)
- The Skull Beneath the
Skin (1982)
Omnibus Editions
There are several, unfortunately with considerable overlap. Many of them mix in a Cordelia Gray novel; I have included those, but separated off from the rest. As usual, none of them make any chronological sense. Finally, this list may be incomplete--information seems hard to find.
Dalgliesh-Only Omnibus Volumes
- A Dalgliesh
Trilogy
- Shroud for a Nightingale
- The Black Tower
- Death of an Expert Witness
- A Second Dalgliesh
Trilogy
- A Mind to Murder
- A Taste for Death
- Devices and Desires
- Crime Times
Three
- Cover Her Face
- A Mind to Murder
- Shroud for a Nightingale
- A P. D. James
Omnibus
Take care: there is another like-named James omnibus volumes with different contents; make sure which one you're looking at.
- A Taste for Death
- Devices and Desires
- Original Sin
Dalgliesh Omnibus Volumes With Other James Works
- Deadly Pleasures
- The Black Tower
- Death of an Expert Witness
- The Skull Beneath The Skin (Cordelia Gray)
- The Omnibus
Take care: there is another like-named James omnibus volumes with different contents; make sure which one you're looking at.
- An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (Cordelia Gray)
- Death of an Expert Witness
- Innocent Blood (non-series)
- P. D. James Boxed Set
Take care: there is another like-named James omnibus volumes with different contents; make sure which one you're looking at.
- The Black Tower
- Shroud for a Nightingale
- Unnatural Causes
- An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (Cordelia Gray)
- Three Complete
Novels aka
In Murderous
Company aka
Murder In
Triplicate
Take care: Three Complete Novels will likely find other volumes with different contents; make sure which one you're looking at.
- Unnatural Causes
- An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (Cordelia Gray)
- The Black Tower
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