An influential father does not accept that his son's death was accidental and pulls strings to have Adam Dalgleish assigned to the case. After Dalgleish arrives at the small seminary on the Suffolk coast where the young man was studying, a visiting Archdeacon's body is found in the chapel.

A good, fun, quick read. ( )

Good detective novel, although realism gets thrown to the East Anglian wind for the sake of a gruesome tale with lots of people dying. A gripping read that is thoughtful enough, but scratches over issues in a superficial manner. ( )

This is the second PD James book I've read (the other was The Black Tower) and the plots seem almost identical. She certainly likes remote isolated communities with old stone cottages and a large country house housing the main characters. An enjoyable read with a good pace, but I much prefer Ian Rankin's Rebus to PD James' Dalgliesh

There were rather more unsympathetic characters in this novel than there are in others I thought, perhaps that is why some readers have been dissatisfied with this novel.

Mirfields or St. Stephens? You decide ( )

Good to fairly written, but a good whodunit. ( )

A good old fashioned who-dunit. Well written with good plot development. Very enjoyable.

Dagliesh investigates a death of a seminary student in a small seminary where he had spent time as a boy. Seminary to be closed, sold; inheritance?

Set in Lowestoft, just down the road from me, this is an excellently constructed novel based around a retreat. The whodunnit nature of the book is superbly handled and, I would be awarding five stars, without question, if it were not for Father John. Father John has been imprisoned for offences against young choristers under his supervision. Archdeacon Crampton, the victim, assisted the police in making their case against Father John and, we repeatedly get the other characters chastising the archdeacon for his unsporting behaviour to a fellow member of the church. I can only assume that this represents the author's views, to which, of course, she is fully entitled, but did grate, more than a little. ( )

Another great one from Baroness James. Maybe the outcomes have gotten a bit predictable by now...well, not predictable, as such. Let's just say, when it's all said and done and you find out who the murderer is, you get the distinct feeling you've read the story before. ( )

Death in Holy Orders is the first P.D James tale I have read. I plan on reading others. While Adam Dalgiesh of the Scotland Yard conducts a secondary investigation of a death at a theological college more deaths occur. The investigation is the backbone of the book.
One reviewer described this book as "ponderous" and I agree. The book is long and at times the detail is deep - for some maybe, too deep. The style of author James leads this book to be read slowly and with a dictionary at hand. I enjoyed this book, but found myself starting and finishing a couple other books while following Dalgiesh's investigation. I willed myself to finish this book and in doing so I was entertained and my vocabulary increased. ( )

Three deaths occur at a remote theological college on a isolated part of the English coast. Dalgliesh is asked to take a second look at a possible suicide but once he is at the college he begins to suspect that the second and third deaths may be related. Dalgliesh plays a bigger part in this mystery than in his last outing, A Certain Justice. It is good to have him back and at the center of the mystery. As usual, James pulls the reader into the lives and complicated and often secret relationships of the people at the college. An enjoyable read. ( )

This is the novel before The Murder Room. This is where Adam meets Emma. The story takes place in a small theological seminary which is in danger of being shut down because the Church thinks it is out dated (at least some of them do.) This is also the place where Dalgliesh spent his summers when he was a boy and his father would trade with inner city pastors to give them a break. The story is interesting but even more interesting is the insight we get into the character of Adam Dalgliesh—even more than in Murder Room. An enjoyable read. ( )

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1042549.ht...

This is the first Dalgliesh novel I've read - I have a feeling I did once get through An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, so not quite my first P.D. James. (Interestingly, the two books share the theme of the detective being called in to investigate the opossible suicide of a young man by his distant, rich, estranged father.) I very much enjoyed it, especially in contrast to Little, Big which I was slogging through at the same time. Of course, the whole thing depends rather a lot on hidden coincidences and secrets (the bit about the consecrated wafer seemed particularly unlikely to me), but it is entertaining and I found the resolution at least psychologically consistent with what we knew of the characters.

The book is set in an obscure High Church Anglican seminary, and there is a certain amount of reflection on the current state of the Church of England - though perhaps it's more that she is doing a conscious (and at one point complete overt) riff on Trollope. ( )

She's fascinating and all, but her style is frustratingly mediocre. A genre writer who writes like that is considered trashy, you know? ( )

From Publishers Weekly
Baroness James may have turned 80, but neither she nor her dogged Scotland Yard detective Commander Adam Dalgliesh (last seen in 1997's A Certain Justice) shows any sign of flagging in this superb whodunit, with its extraordinarily complex and nuanced plot and large cast of credible characters. When the body of a young ordinand, Ronald Treeves, turns up buried in a sandy bank on the Suffolk coast near isolated St. Anselm's, a High Anglican theological college, it's unclear whether his death was an accident, suicide or murder. The mystery deepens a few days later when someone suffocates Margaret Munroe, a retired nurse with a bad heart, because she remembers an event 12 years earlier that could have some bearing on whatever's amiss at St. Anselm's. Enter Dalgliesh at the behest of Ronald's father, Sir Alred, who's received an anonymous note suggesting foul play in his son's death. It isn't long before another death occurs, and this time it's clearly murder: late one night in the chapel, somebody bashes in the head of Archdeacon Crampton, a hard-nosed outsider who wanted to close St. Anselm's. Dalgliesh and his investigative team examine the complicated motives of a host of suspects resident at the college, mostly ordinands and priests, slowly unveiling the connections among the various deaths. Illegitimacy, incest, a secret marriage, a missing cloak and a valuable altar triptych are just some of the ingredients in a case as contrived as any Golden Age classic but presented with such masterful ease and conviction that even the most skeptical readers will suspend disbelief. This is a natural for PBS Mystery adaptation. (Apr. 19)Forecast: With a 300,000-copy first printing, this BOMC main selection is sure to race up the bestseller lists. ( )

An Adam Dalgliesh mystery. Fun, with plenty of murders and suspects to go around. Nothing profound about it, but good for spring break!

A very intelligent whodunnit. ( )

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Another well crafted Adam Dalgliesh murder mystery. James is at her most English in setting the murder in the elitist seminary St. Anselm's for the highest of high church Anglicanism. About half of the many characters could never appear in an American mystery. Dalgliesh is called by a British business magnate to investigate the apparant suicide of his son, who had been an ordinand at the seminary. During the investigation, a somewhat liberal Archdeacon of the Church is murdered in the chapel. The murder had to be an inside job, and so the resident priests, students, and local workers are all suspects. In the course of Dalgleish's examination, James has the opportunity to explore disaffection from religion, the role of the Church of England in modern society, and even the issue of priestly pedophilia. In the end, all our questions are answered by a perpetrator probably more voluble and confessatory than most, so that the reader can be satisfied as well as Dalgleish. But it's a small cavil - we needed to know, after all! Half the fun of the book redounds from the veddy veddy Englishness of it all.

(JAB)

What an absolute pleasure to encounter a detective novel featuring multiple murders that actually rises above the level of eighth grade reading and writing! James' prose and application of the English language is a pure joy to read. Felicitously structured sentences abound with words like tenebrous, etiolated, castellated, and peregrinations, while well-formed phrases such as "the smell of spice, fugitive as memory, still lingered...""desultory exchange of platitutes" and "the usual sobriquets" substitute for the usual tired mystery prose. After my husband heartily recommended P.D. James, I resisted; after all, the author is a woman in her eighties! James herself inserts a sly jab at those like me, when her character Emma muses "Why was it, she wondered, so difficult to believe that the old had been young, with the strength and animal beauty of youth, had loved, been loved, laughed and been full of youth's unmeditated optimism?" She caught me. And she taught me well. I am a chastened and converted P.D. James fan now.

(JAF)

This is not my favorite kind of detective story. No humor to speak of. Inspector Dalgleash is admirable, but not engaging. The mystery and story are good, but a bit too much spelling out the nasty details of peoples sex lives for me to enjoy it. I like theose details to be a mystery too. Something I can imagine, or not, if I want to. This won't stay on my shelves. ( )

Dagliesh mysteries are all good. He is an introspective detective cum poet. A literary take on the mystery. ( )

Another excellent James mystery. I loved the setting for this one -- an Anglican seminary on the English coast. Dalgliesh returns to St. Anselm's, where he spent several happy summers as a boy, to investigate the death of a seminary student. The student was killed in the collapse of a sandy cliff, but it is not clear whether his death was accidental, suicide, or even murder. There's loads of intrigue, as three subsequent deaths expose the priests and students to scrutiny and their lives are laid bare. ( )

A young theology student is found on a beach and is thought to be an accidental death until other people start dying.

Interesting moment where knitting provides a clue that not all is well with one of the deaths. ( )

An Adam Dalgliesh Mystery.
Set in East Anglia, The weathly father of an about to be ordained student at St. Anselm is not satisfied with the results of the inquest into his son's death--smothered under sand at the crumbling beach cliffs. Adams, who used to spend summers at St. Anselm, and who was to have spent time in the area, accepts to look into the matter. While he is there, an important work of art is defaced and a terrible murder is committed in the church. In this novel, Adam meets a whoman worthy of him--what will happen next? ( )