Cover Her Face

#1 of 14 in the Adam Dalgleish mystery series.

Our murder victim is Sallly Jupp, a young unwed mother who has been working for several months as a maid for the Maxie family. Sally is very pretty and ambitious, and everyone in the household seems to dislike her, or at least to be made quite uncomfortable by her. When she announces to the family that Dr. Stephen Maxie has proposed to her, it's not terribly surprising that she's found dead the next morning, strangled in her bed. Detective Chief Inspector Adam Dalgleish is brought in to solve the case, which he does with brisk efficiency.

Maybe even a bit too much brisk efficiency; James doesn't waste a lot of time on digressions or red herrings. The crime is committed; Dalgleish questions show more the family members, along with their friends and guests; the murderer is revealed. We get some time alone with some of the suspects, but I would have liked more of that. Perhaps James was, in her first book, avoiding the challenge of writing from the murderer's point of view without revealing that they are the murderer.

Even in 1962, I think this book would have felt a bit old-fashioned, a throwback to the Golden Age of the British murder mystery. A relatively isolated country estate housing a small group of suspects; a clash between servants and employers; a great deal of class snobbery (the Maxies' longtime maid, who is supervising Sally, looks down on her for being an unwed moter); an "I've gathered you all here in the drawing room" monologue from the detective -- it's all very 1940s.

But I liked the book, and I enjoyed James's writing, which has a tart snap. Take this moment, when one character is visiting the offices of a novel-of-the-month subscription service:

"Select Books catered for that class of reader which likes a good story without caring much who writes it, prefers to be spared the tedium of personal choice, and believes that a bookcase of volumes equal in size and bound in exactly the same colour gives tone to any room. Select Books preferred virtue to be rewarded and vice suitably punished. They eschewed salacity, avoided controversy and took no risks with unestablished writers. Not surprisingly they often had to look far back in the publishers' lists to produce a current choice."

Or this, after the death of the family patriarch, who has been a comatose invalid for some time:

"The long years of half-life were over at last. Emotionally and intellectually he had been dead for three years. His last breath was the technicality which finally and officially severed him from a world which he had once known and loved. It was not within his capacity now to die with courage or with dignity but he died without fuss."

That last sentence is marvelous.

I liked a lot about this book, and the things that didn't work were relatively minor problems that I'd expect to improve with time and experience. Had I not known that this was a first novel, I don't think I'd have pegged it as one. I could easily go back for more of this series. show less

Quick binge re-read of PD James' first published book. Interesting closed circle mystery set within the confines of a modest country house in the early 60s. There's a great deal of classism and snobbery amongst the main suspects, and James is always better at her rendering of the upper middle classes than the common people. Interesting to see the beginning of a change in attitude to "unmarried mothers" and rather shocking to discover that the "girl" in question is an adult of 22 (her apparent lack of agency suggested to me she was about 17). I enjoyed this book but there's always a curious feeling of distance in James's writing, a lack of warmth, or a clinical detachment which I find slightly uncomfortable. I'd not read this one for a show more long time and re-read after discovering its publication forced Agatha Christie to change the title of her last published Marple from "Cover her face" to "Sleeping Murder" - it fitted better with Christie's plot (though something of a spoiler). Also the cover of this edition (the bloodied telephone handset) has absolutely nothing to do with the plot. show less

In P.D. James's Cover Her Face, young housemaid and single mother Sally Jupp is found strangled in bed behind a bolted bedroom door, with her infant son asleep in his crib in the same room. Just the day before, her employer at Martingale manor house, Mrs. Eleanor Maxie had been in the middle of presiding over the annual St. Cedd's Church fete when she received the astonishing news that Sally had become engaged to marry Mrs. Maxie's son, physician Stephen Maxie. Family and friends, as well as those who had known Sally at St. Mary's Refuge for Girls were surprised and shocked, but was the surprising engagement enough to spur someone to murder? Both Martha, the family's longtime housekeeper, and Mrs. Maxie's daughter Deborah had reasons to show more dislike the girl. Or could the murder be related to something in Sally's past – something to do with her time at the refuge for unwed mothers, or her former employment at the Select Book Club in London?

Sally was lovely and headstrong, and had ambitions "above her station" that very well might have resulted in enemies. One by one, the suspects mount up, and Scotland Yard's Detective Chief-Inspector Adam Dalgliesh is called in to sift through the evidence – and the complicated relationships and passions beneath the calm surface of English village life – to come up with a solution to the mystery.

Cover Her Face was P.D. James's first novel, and marked the debut of poetry-writing sleuth Adam Dalgliesh. Published in 1962, it was written, so James says, during her train rides to and from her civil servant's job in London. It was wildly successful and spawned a best-selling series that is still going strong today.

I've loved every one of the books, but somehow I had neglected the first book until this year. I wondered how it would compare to the later, perhaps more polished works – and the answer is that it holds up very well. James's style is already pretty fully developed, and her adept handling of characterization is evident from the book's first page. The London Sunday Times has famously referred to her as "the greatest contemporary writer of classic crime." I would not disagree with that statement; and I'd say Adam Dalgliesh is one of the most fascinating characters in fiction – detective fiction or any other genre. I'm so glad I finally managed to read the book that introduced him to the world. show less

I didn't realize this is the first of Dalgliesh's mysteries, and it was fun to be introduced to the character. Formal, empathetic, thorough, Dalgliesh is wonderful detective whom I appreciate for his rigour and kindness. The plot, however, does read like a first timer: whereas I liked to coziness of a traditional mystery contained in time and space, there were artifices, bizarre complexities and ultimately painful prolonged suspens that read like a beginner novel. Thankfully, James's trademark sense of humour carries the book through; nothing like a crisp, witty observation to lighten the mood.
This is definitely not her best but overall I enjoyed myself greatly.

Scotland Yard Detective Chief-Inspector Adam Dalgliesh is called to an English country house over the murder of the maid Sally Jupp in a locked room. Dalgliesh, a true gentleman detective, immediate suspects a member of the household or their immediate circle. The pacing is deliberate and methodical, with the novel centering much more on character than on action. Dalgliesh is quiet, genteel, and brilliant, with the rest of the cast developed with more foibles and complexities as each is examined as a suspect.

Dalgliesh would appeal to fans of Agatha Christie.

#1 Chief Inspector Adam Dalgleish mystery. This is one of my TBR Challenge books which has been on my shelf almost 2 years! I never got to it simply because I’m in the midst of so many other British police mystery series. Who killed Sally Jupp? A maid at Martingale, the local country manor home, Sally is found in her (locked) bedroom peacefully in bed, dead as a doornail with obvious strangulation marks around her neck and her infant son wailing in his cot next to her. She had been given her position at the recommendation of the matron of the local home for unwed mothers a few months past and seemed to sow dissent among the Maxie family and their help from the time of her arrival, culminating with the announcement earlier that day show more that their son Stephen had asked her to marry him! With so many possible suspects, will CI Dalgleish and his trusty note-taking sidekick be able to sort out the problem? Of course! Classic British mystery written in 1962, this was a very engaging book despite the lack of detail into the main character’s (Dalgleish) life and psyche—in fact, he doesn’t even make an appearance until almost page 60 and we are not privy to the machinations of his obviously very superior brain. As with most mysteries of that era, the focus is on plotting rather than character development, and James does that VERY well. I had no idea who the murderer was until the reveal, though I did pick up on many clues—some of them red herrings—along the way. In that sense, I enjoyed the book very much, but I do hope we are given more insight and details of the Chief Inspector’s life in later books. show less

Interesting to place this as a more modern Christie. Extremely classical whodunnit format but with less formality and much more depth of characterization. Not a particularly satisfying puzzle in terms of solvability, but interesting to get so much variety of pov. Narration pretty good though some of the voice choicies were grating.