Death of an Expert Witness

I'm trying to fill some gaps in my reading of which Adam Dalgleish is one. This book came to me as a random picking from a charity shop and I have no idea how enthusiasts rate it in the canon.

P D James' writing is literate and polished: her characterisations are more three-dimensional than is common in murder mysteries but she is still hog-tied by the convention of having to get through a sufficiently large cast of suspects with adequate motives in the first quarter of the book, as well as, in this case, making sure that the reader will be neither surprised, nor sorry, when the victim meets his (or her) violent end.

The action of the story takes place in Fen country, the somewhat improbable location of a regional forensic science centre show more set up in a rather grand country house, with its own Wren chapel. James deals well with the gloomy and introspective fenland, and fenland people, although none of the main protagonists are true natives. The book falls a little between a whodunit and a procedural novel and it is a bit irritating when chapters end with characters discussing important facts and conclusions to which the reader is not privy.

Commander Dalgleish is obviously a favourite of the author and of the series' fans but he was a bit too 'tortured' for my taste. I understand that James had him briefly married and briskly widowed - as well as losing his newborn child - because she envisaged the series having a good future and didn't want to have to trouble herself dealing with his growing family. Whatever the truth of this, Dalgliesh is one of the company of detectives that are emotionally wounded and alone - Morse, Rebus and maybe even Holmes. His intellectual status - he is a poet, after all - is reinforced by quotations from Crabbe and epigrams from Plutarch.

The plot is tidily constructed with an adequate number of red herrings along the way, but don't look for spoilers here! I don't think I will rush to meet Dalgliesh again despite the quality of the writing. show less

Laboratory Lust
Review of the Sphere Books paperback (1978 orig./1986 reprint) of the Faber & Faber hardcover original (1977)

I used to think that we can have almost anything we want from life, that it's just a question of organization. But now I'm beginning to think that we have to make a choice more often than we'd like. The important thing is to make sure that it's our choice, no one else's, and that we make it honestly. But one thing I'm sure of is that it's never a good thing to make a decision when you're not absolutely well. - Adam Dalgliesh gives advice during Death of an Expert Witness

Detective Commander* Adam Dalgliesh and his assistant DS John Massingham, both of Scotland Yard CID, are called out to investigate the death of show more Dr. Edwin Lorrimer at the East Anglia Forensics Laboratory. Lorrimer was chief of the biological department of the laboratory and did not get along well with his colleagues. He was also recently overlooked for promotion to the position of Head of the Laboratory with the hiring of an outsider, Dr. Howarth.

The tight security procedures at the laboratory would seem to indicate that the murderer had to be someone with inside knowledge of its workings. Due to the way Lorrimer belittled or resented his colleagues, there are no shortage of suspects. It also becomes evident that the murderer had to have a special set of skills in order to exit the laboratory after the crime. This was probably the most significant clue (it was only mentioned briefly in passing) to the solution which begins to be clear when witnesses are able to narrow down the time frame of the crime. But then there is yet another murder.

See book cover at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d0/DeathOfAnExpertWitness.jpg
Front cover of the original Faber & Faber hardcover edition (1977). Image sourced from Wikipedia.

I read Death of an Expert Witness as part of my continuing 2022 binge re-read of the P.D. James' Adam Dalgliesh and Cordelia Gray novels, which I am enjoying immensely. James is truely at the height of the Silver Age of Crime authors and puts most modern mystery writers to shame with her extensive character backgrounds and plots often set in confined communities where an atmosphere of paranoia and foreboding reign, until the cool, often detached detection of Dalgliesh is able to arrive at a clarifying solution.

Trivia and Links
* In Book 1, Adam Dalgliesh was a Detective Chief Inspector, in Books 2 to 4 he is a Detective Superintendent and in Books 5 to 14 he is a Detective Commander.

Death of an Expert Witness was adapted for television in 1983 as part of the long running Dalgliesh TV-series for Anglia Television/ITV (1983-1998) starring actor Roy Marsden as Commander Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard. You can watch the 7 episodes of the 1983 adaptation starting with Episode 1 on YouTube here. The adaptation is reasonably faithful to the novel.

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

I like this more than many of the later Dalgliesh novels, in which I fear he becomes a caricature of himself. The characters here are presumably drawn from the author's own experience, and the Fenland setting, where I lived for a while, certainly seems realistic enough. I can believe in the characters here, especially the minor ones – the bent copper, the pitiful prostitute, the young girl buying her knickers at Cambridge M&S (where I also shopped) - where I cannot believe in some characters in the later books. Having said which, the author's style is nothing less than smooth and fluid throughout her whole oeuvre, and her plotting is ingenious and almost always on this side of credible.

I started out listening to the audio book version of [b:Death of an Expert Witness|3828|Death of an Expert Witness (Adam Dalgliesh, #6)|P.D. James|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1321172504s/3828.jpg|2441]. However, I quickly switched over to a hard copy borrowed from my local library. What a good choice! I fell in love with P.D. James when I read one of the later Dalgliesh mysteries. I quickly decided to start from the beginning of the series. I ALMOST changed my mind after the last couple books because I found them a little boring. After the first chapter in this one, I felt the same. I decided to see if the narrator was leading me to feel that way (think droning monotone voice). Yep, that was it! After starting the hard copy version, I show more couldn't put it down and can't wait to check out the next one.

P.D. James had such a knack for drawing in the reader by crafting a perfect mystery each and every time. Characters, showing true, deep emotions, tighten the bond with the reader. THIS is why she will always be a top name in mystery. show less

Primera lectura de esta autora, por lo que desconozco su estilo, en ésta en particular, lleva al lector a sospechar de más de uno. Sobretodo porque al inicio, parecería que va presentando a cada uno de los potenciales asesinos. Además, la obra inicia con lo que parecería es el tema central o el móvil, pero resulta que es un elemento meramente ornamental. Muy buena.

This one posed several problems for me:

1 - Adam Dalgliesh is a dud. He's not interesting as a character; he has no flaws other than "impersonal and cold to all other human beings" and "disgusted by imperfections in human bodies." His side job as a published poet does nothing to detract from his boring-ness. I do not care that he can quote whichever poet someone offhandedly mentions (and I'm trying to think of the last time someone offhandedly mentioned a poet to me. Coming up blank).

2. There was a sidekick/lower level police detective back in book 4, who looked like he was taking a turn for the unlikeable (and therefore possibly introducing some interesting developments in the Dalgliesh universe). There was no sidekick at all in book 5, show more and here in book 6 we are introduced to a new one. Disappointing.

3. I don't know what it is about the suspects and other side characters - I just cannot bring myself to care about most of them.

4. I like this series enough to carry on, but I'm a little less happy about it. I guess there are worse problems. show less

Agreeable English murder mystery that presses all the right buttons (country house, fenland location, abandoned chapel, etc.) and has the classic P.D. James setting of a small official institution with all its internal procedures, squabbles and rivalries. The added ingredient this time is that the victim and all the suspects are experts on murder - forensic scientists, police officers, pathologists, and a novelist. Even the murder weapon is - well, a murder weapon, actually...