You can always approach a P.D. James book with confidence. She writes extremely well and consistently creates interesting mysteries. Of course, there is a certain formula to what she does – the often remote setting with a small group of captive suspects. Keeps it neat and tidy. But she’s great at describing settings and fleshing out her characters to make them real and believable people. The motive for murder sometimes seems a bit farfetched – would someone really commit murder for the reasons she comes up with in this book, for example? I don’t know, maybe my life is too cloistered and I just don’t realise what’s happening ‘out there’.
The Private Patient is about an investigative journalist who decides in middle age to have a significant scar on her face removed. She chooses to have it done at a private clinic in the country where a cast of rather complex characters – and, of course, murder – awaits her. Commander Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard is called in and sorts it all out with his trusted team of two. I noted with amazement that P.D. James is now 89 years old and that this book was written when she was in her mid-eighties. Unbelievable. It does feel as if she means this to be her last murder mystery with all the personal ends satisfyingly tied up for her main characters.