This great pastel edition celebrates her first 1962 novel, Cover Her Face, and it actually is part of an imprint that celebrates first novels: the Faber Firsts. Caught my eye in a secondhand bookshop!
P.D James is a household name and I was excited to see her debut work from 1962. This is the book where we first meet her detective, Adam Dagliesh, her brooding and moody poetry-writing hero.
As a debut for Dagliesh, it feels rather modest, and we don’t hear a lot about him in this novel.
A locked room mystery where a young maid dies, the book’s title is a quote from The Duchess of Malfi, and it is set in a quintessential English country village.
It’s an interesting book. It’s got a whole mix of things. The tone plays around with different themes and there’s odd bits of morality and horror mixed with humour and typical “English country house murder” tropes. It’s maybe easy to judge a debut novel in this way, but you get a sense of the author trying to figure out what it is they want to say and how.
Also, the 1960s were an interesting time to be writing and publishing a book like this and I wonder if that had an impact? How did she feel she was “talking back to” the golden age of the murder mystery and crime novel? What novelty would you want to bring to the table?
The victim, Sally, is someone I found really fascinating. The biggest mystery of the book is actually about her character: what is she like? What are her motivations?
The incidentals of the murder aren’t all the unique, but it’s well-written, intelligent, and you want to find out what happened to Sally. A bit of a hasty conclusion.
P.D herself led an interesting life as well…
One word: skilled.
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