The Murder Room

I don't generally read murder mysteries, but this premise drew me in. The 'Murder Room' is an exhibit in a museum with content dedicated to murders of the past. Some creepy person gets the idea of recreating a few of the stories from its exhibits. What I didn't expect was the enormous trouble of creating well-rounded characters, making me feel this mystery was only the latest incident in their lives and that those lives will carry on after the story's end. I think I appreciated that aspect more than I did the mystery itself. In fact I was less concerned about who might have dunnit than I was fervently hoping certain characters had not.

I've been spoiled by Agatha Christie, the one mystery author I've read quite a bit of. In her stories show more all the pieces are there. In this novel and others like it, the detectives pull out five or ten pieces at the end which they've never shown you. It's not the same thing, and it doesn't have the same effectiveness. I would also have liked more sewing together between what goes on during the mystery - what personal revelations it might unlock for the detective as he does his work - and what conclusions he reaches about how to handle his private matters. But time and again the novel tells me that Dalgliesh keeps his work and private life strictly separate, so I guess that precludes the possibility of making these parts of the novel feel more like a whole. show less

Dalgliesh tries to find time for a new love interest, as he leads the investigation into a gruesome murder of one of the trustees of a family museum. Interesting characters (although one or two of them are slightly stock-y), lots of threads to untangle. The clearest motivations are not necessarily the ones to trust, of course, but I thought James dropped a sneaky clue near the beginning, especially when chapters and chapters went by without much attention being paid to that particular possibility. Naturally I was all wrong. I've never yet figured her out, and that's the fun of it.

Another Adam Dalgliesh murder mystery. In this one is a private museum called the DuPayne Museum in London and it is devoted to the years between WWI and WWII (1919-1939). One room of the museum is called the Murder Room because it holds the exhibits of famous murders from that time. The 3 siblings who inherited the museum are at odds about whether to keep the museum open or not. One man, Dr. Neville DuPayne, wants to close it and sell everything for the money. He is a psychiatrist with a troubled adult daughter who is demanding the money. The oldest brother is Marcus DuPayne and he is retiring with his frustrated socially ambitious wife. He was never able to reach the heights that his wife desired but he has the prestige of being able show more to run the family museum. Their sister is Caroline DuPayne, single, and works as a Vice Principal at an elite finishing school for girls. She has an apartment at the DuPayne Museum and wants to keep the museum so she can keep the apartment. She is very willing for her brother, Marcus, to take over the running of the museum as she aspires to own the finishing school herself one day. Of the staff, there is a young gay man named Ryan Archer with a troubled, migratory past who works in the yard. Muriel Godby was hired from the finishing school since some of the girls had taken a dislike to her and made her life miserable. She helps Caroline DuPayne run the museum. Then there is sweet Tally Clutton, the housekeeper, and she lives in a cottage on the grounds. She is worried about losing her job and losing her cottage if the museum is closed.

After an argument between the siblings about whether to keep the museum open or not, Dr. Neville DuPayne is found murdered. He keeps his Jaguar garaged at the museum and he is sitting in the Jag when he is doused with gasoline and set on fire. Who did it? All of them have motives just on the surface. But Adam Dalgliesh and his crew have to sift deeper to find the real reasons and then which one of them actually did it.

P.D. James writes wonderfully well and I enjoy her mysteries but they are a little gloomy. Her very British characters are all a little too stalwart, uncommunicative, holding too much to the chest which seems to make them cold. Their "pree-vacy" means much more to them than honor, honesty, or any other virtue. Very selfish, cold and calculating and godless. Yes, I said "godless". She makes it a point to have at least one character that mocks Christianity or talks openly about their atheistic views. She does make that point in every book. Christianity and God are not just ignored in her books but at least one character makes a statement about it. God is dismissed as ridiculous and no intelligent human would seriously believe in God. It's sad. I think that is why I like Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas series because Koontz has positive Christian characters just like he has other positive "odd" characters. He presents all his characters (not the villains) with a positive light. They are different, odd, eccentric, have different interests or even handicaps but he presents them in a positive light. But James' can make even her "good" characters look cold, selfish, materialistic, overly ambitious, etc. For instance, Dalgliesh is so afraid of rejection and wounded pride that he won't communicate with his lady love, Emma. He is too afraid of saying, "I love you." Kate Miskin and her colleagues are so ambitious that they step on each other. She wants financial security above all else because of the poverty she grew up in. And she hugs that financial security to herself every day and makes sure it's part of her every waking thought. She is constantly jockeying and thinking in order to keep that "financial security".

Anyway, P.D. James is always a good read, her mysteries are always interesting and they're not solved by knowing the clues on the surface. show less

Written in 2003 this, the 12th in the Adam Dalgliesh crime fiction series by PD James, is preceded by an excerpt from TS Eliot’s poem ‘Burnt Norton’:
‘Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.’
Time is a theme layered throughout this book. Its setting is the Dupayne Museum on Hampstead Heath, so historical time is represented by the exhibits at the museum. Time, recently passed, is examined and re-examined as part of the murder investigation. Time future, is represented by the theme of Adam Dalgliesh’s love for Emma and his courtship of her, a path not easy or untroubled.
Like all Dalgliesh novels, murder happens within a tight community. The Dupayne Museum has a show more small community of owners, staff and visitors. At first glance the victims are not clearly attached to the museum, but this is a James novel: of course they are, we just don’t know how yet.
The murder doesn’t happen for quite a while as James takes her time introducing us to the circle of potential victims and criminals, their connection to the museum and their life outside it. There is an air of the past about it, as if it was written in the thirties, an antidote to modern fast-paced modern crime novels so in itself representing a portrait of changing crime fiction. Time is given to characterization, setting, motivation, and not to dramatic action scenes: more Christie and Sayers than James or Rankin.
In the course of reading ‘The Murder Room’, I considered why I enjoy reading detective novels and what I take from them. I like the mystery, the tension of the chase, the fitting together of disparate elements. I do not like violence, graphic sex or language. But most of all, I like the examination of human nature, the contradictions, the surprises, the privacy of the mind laid bare. PD James excels at all of this; she remains my favourite author of crime fiction, and Adam Dalgliesh my favourite detective.
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-reviews-a-z/ show less

In James' mysteries there are no penetrating interviews by hardened detectives, no rushing around, no plodding research. Instead this is a stately, measured account of murder in the cultivated setting of a private museum and school. Commander Adam Dalgliesh, the detective in charge, writes poetry so naturally it offers a suitably cultivated air. But the upper crust can commit heinous crimes as well as anyone else. P.D. James is hard to beat.

P.D. James has written another wonderful "Adam Dalgliesh Mystery" and we readers are the lucky ones, one more time. Ms. James seems to get better with age, and I was unable to stop reading this book until the end. A family is being torn apart by a decision of what to do with their late father's pride and joy, a museum of the dead. As Adam Dalgliesh does his best to solve the crimes being commited in the style of the Murder Room, Ms. James keeps us on our toes with her finely crafted prose, playful wit and keen eye for detail. Never pass up a chance to read a book written by Ms. James, but especially this latest, and as I find, her best.

This book took a long time to get to the first murder and didn’t really pick up steam until the second murder. Elements of the resolution felt a bit sensationalized or gratuitous, and there were a couple of coincidences that I didn’t quite buy (especially because one of them seemed to come completely out of left field).