Isolation

[threemonkeys]

Restricted 'net access has its plus side. After yet another Monday of canceled meetings and tedious test definition all I am usually up for is TV and a cruise down the infobahn (whatever happened to that term? - it seems totally forgotten). That means I don't get so much reading done during the week - the weekends are when I get most of it done. However, last night provided 50 channels and nothing to watch scuppering the TV and a trashed hard disk stopping the computer based fun. Instead I read The Lighthouse by P. D. James. I thought it was time to switch genres for a while.

Like so many crime writers P. D. James works very much to a formula. A collection of dispirited people, a murder and along comes Commander Dalgliesh and his team with all their internal demons to solve the crime. The thing is, James always manages to make this seem fresh. There are always enough new angles to keep things interesting.

Apart from the repeating crew, the characters are not always deep but they are always fascinating in a deeply flawed kind of way. The physical landscape of the books is always an important character in the books which helps set atmosphere. And then of course there is a crime to be solved.

The above is general about all her work, but in The Lighthouse I think there is more freshness that usual. The characters and the development of the police team seem particularly interesting this time around as their lives progress. The island setting of this novel may be a cliche but it works very well for setting the mood.

All this character development seems to be at the expense of the crime itself. At times it seems to take second place. That didn't actually worry me but I suppose dedicated crime fans may be disappointed. Overall though, the best P.D. James novel for quite a while and that is no lightweight thing.

Comments

[mashugenah.livejournal.com]

I've only read The Murder Room in that sequence, but just couldn't care about any of the characters even a little. There was a huge morasse of irrelevant detail which just sucked time without IMHO providing any flavour. It seemed to me like he was writing a low-grade soap opera with a crime backdrop, and wanted to distract the audience from this as much as possible with a "can't see the forest for the trees" approach to writing. :(

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

I guess we will have to agree to differ. I would say that The Murder Room was not a good starting place - IMO perhaps her weakest book other than her attempt at SF (The Children of Men).

[stephanie-pegg.livejournal.com]

I tend to find her books to be well written but morbid and depressing. She has a habit of showing slices of people's lives, and how they intersect with everyone elses, and especially, how the murder is going to mess them up even more, even though their only involvement was seeing something odd that day. Depressing.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on all that - there is seldom if ever a happy character in her work. It is perhaps a bit of a worry then that I find it all that so interesting.