A Mind to Murder

Where I got the book: audiobook on Audible. Read by Penelope Dellaporta in a terribly refined voice with a few character accents

I noted with great delight that the action of this book takes place mostly in the Steen clinic, which caters to rich, upper-class patients with socially unacceptable problems such as failing marriages and Undiscussable Things (I suspect one of the Things is homosexuality, which was still a criminal offense in England back in 1963). Cures are effected by such means as electroshock therapy and doses of LSD, causing the patients such distress that they scream, and everyone seems to think that’s quite OK and normal. How antiquated it all sounds, and how happy I am that those days are gone.

The clinic is kept show more running smoothly by Miss Bolam, whom nobody particularly likes. In the last book, Cover Her Face, James also had a murder victim whom nobody particularly liked, and I do hope she doesn’t overuse this method of ensuring lots of potential suspects. Adam Dalgliesh is the man to work his way through the list of possible murderers, and we learn a little more about him—that’s he’s a moderately successful poet on the side, that he still has a thing for Deborah Risko, a suspect from the first book, and that his wife died. All in the cause of making him a little more three-dimensional, but only, really, a little bit more. As a man he just doesn’t float my boat, which is a shame because it helps to fall for the detective as you read through the series.

The suspects are a bit more convincingly sketched in this time, and the slow unfolding of motives and backstory is reasonably entertaining, but it’s not yet P.D. James at her best. There’s a twist, but I ended up being a bit meh about the whole business of who actually killed Miss Bolam. I found myself psychoanalyzing James instead—hmm, another plot line involving a lower-class girl who’s no better than she should be. Hmmm, more snobbery. Hmmmmmmmmm, a suggestion that the single life can, despite all appearances (and contrary to what women were told in James’s day) be more fulfilling than marriage and motherhood. I’m starting to picture James as having clawed her way upward despite all odds, because there’s nothing more snobbish than the ambitious lower orders.

Is there a biographer in the house? I see that James has written an autobiography, but that no biography has as yet been written. I begin to suspect that it might be worth the telling, and have put the autobiography on my TBR. show less

Another PD James re-read. Her second Dalgliesh book, set in a psychiatric clinic - James worked in hospital administration from 1949 to 1968 and her knowledge of the system and the politics of a clinic shines in this work. However again I find her writing somewhat clinical and humourless, the people are nearly all presented as unpleasant and unhappy, (except perhaps for the minor but significant character of Mrs Fenton and maybe also Tigger the cat). There is an interesting twist at the very end which I had forgotten from my previous reads. Dalgliesh is much more involved than in "Cover her Face" and his personality begins to emerge, sensitive, private, a published poet, implacable and self critical. I think I may take a break from show more James as I do find her depressing after my Christie re-reads. show less

Very well written. A nice slow burn with lots of twists and turns along the way. I appreciate the many-layered character of Adam Dalgliesh much more now than when I first read him. And I appreciate that PD James was able to establish a large cast of characters that I was able to keep straight thanks to her deft handling of them. Written in 1963, the book feels like it was written in a more recent decade. This is not your old-fashioned Agatha Christie cozy, but a richer, more nuanced work. I enjoyed it.

Killer Clinic
Review of the Vintage Canada paperback edition (2011) of the Faber & Faber hardcover original (1963)

At the other end of the square, Superintendent* Adam Dalgliesh of the Criminal Investigation Department was attending the ritual autumn sherry party given by his publishers which had coincided with the third reprint of his first book of verse. He didn't overestimate his talent or the success of his book. The poems, which reflected his detached, ironic and fundamentally restless spirit, had happened to catch a public mood. He did not believe that more than half a dozen would live even in his own affections. Meanwhile he found himself awash on the shallows of an unfamiliar sea in which agents, royalties and reviews were

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agreeable hazards. And now there was this party.

I started a binge re-read of the early P.D. James Adam Dalgliesh novels when I recently discovered my 1980's Sphere Books paperbacks while clearing a storage locker. After finishing Cover Her Face (Adam Dalgliesh #1 - 1962) I realized that I did not have a copy of A Mind to Murder, the next entry in the series. Fortunately I was able to source a nice copy of the 2011 Vintage Canada paperback.

Cover Her Face held back quite a bit on introducing Adam Dalgliesh and did not even mention his being a poet. A Mind to Murder brings him on-site almost immediately, only part-way into Chapter One when he is called away from a party at his publishers to a nearby murder scene at the Steen Clinic, an exclusive psychiatric treatment centre. The Chief Administrator has been found murdered in a basement file room and there are multiple suspects, including the doctors, nurses, secretaries and custodians.

P.D. James adopts a trademark style of revealing quite a lot about the inner lives of the suspect characters through inner monologues & scenes without the investigators, including the various possible murder motives that they might have. It seems fairly evident early on that one individual is the wrong 'un of the pack, but James manages to keep you guessing throughout, and then even pulls out a complete surprise at the very end, even to the point of fooling her lead detective.

I'm quite enjoying getting reacquainted with P.D. James and Adam Dalgliesh and look forward to the next books in the series.

See cover image at https://pics.cdn.librarything.com/picsizes/84/4d/844ddd882badf015931346158674443...
Cover of the Sphere Books paperback edition (1985). Image sourced from Library Thing.

Trivia and Links
* In Cover Her Face, Adam Dalgliesh was a Detective Chief Inspector. In Books 2 to 4 he is a Detective Superintendent and then in Books 5 to 14 he is a Detective Commander.

A Mind to Murder was adapted for television in 1995 as part of the long running Dalgliesh TV-series for Anglia Television/ITV (1983-1998) starring actor Roy Marsden as Chief Detective Inspector Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard. You can watch the entire episode of the 1995 adaptation on YouTube here. NOTE: The adaptation differs considerably from the original novel.

The new Acorn TV-series reboot Dalgliesh (2021-?) starring Bertie Carver as Adam Dalgliesh has not yet done an adaptation of A Mind to Murder. It has not been announced which books are being adapted for Season 2 (as of early July 2022). Season 1 adapted Books 4, 5 & 7. show less

It's possible that I am just being picky but I'm realizing that I like distractions and red herrings to be resolved, even if only in a minor kind of way, along with the rest of the plot. They can't just be thrown in at will and abandoned. I say they 'can't' be but I am wrong, because they definitely are in A Mind to Murder, and I don't like it. It's very unsatisfying.

I found the ending to this one somewhat unsatisfying as well, but I really did enjoy the reading of it and so allowances have been made.

I'm guessing that as the series progresses, fewer herrings will be left rotting on the side of the road. Fingers crossed.

From the Book Jacket - When the administrative head of the Steen Psychiatric Clinic is found dead with a chisel in her heart, Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard is called in to investigate. Dalgliesh must analyze the deep-seated anxieties and thwarted desires of patients and staff alike to determine which of their unresolved conflicts resulted in murder.

My Reactions
This is an engaging, interesting and complex murder mystery. I love Dalgliesh and his quiet, deliberate manner. I also really appreciate how James gives us background detail on the characters, revealing a little at a time, much as we’d learn about someone in real life.

James crafts a plot that seems straightforward, but which includes numerous red herrings to show more keep the reader off balance. She certainly had me guessing, and even when Dalgliesh was closing in on the suspect, the author had another surprise in store. Well done! show less

Morð er framið hjá virtri sálfræðistofnun. Í ljós kemur að rígur og öfund ríkir á milli starfsmanna og sumir hafa alls ekki hreint mjöl í pokahorninu.
Skemmtilega ólík mörgum glæpasögum sem ég hef lesið. Alls engin spennu saga. Öllu heldur er rannsóknarferli og viðtölin sem Dalgliesh tekur við vitni og grunaða yfirfarin smásmugulega. Berlega kemur í ljós hve lítið lögreglan veit þegar hún kemur að morðstaðnum og hvernig lögreglumennirnir reyna að setja fram mynd af atburðum og hugsanlegum morðingja. Fersk nálgun, fyrir mig að minnsta kosti, og ég sá alltaf fyrir mér persónurnar úr samnefndum lögregluþáttum enda verður að segjast að aðalleikarinn er nauðalíkur þeim sem P.D. James show more lýsir í bók sinni. show less