The corpse without hands lay in the bottom of a small sailing dinghy drifting just within sight of the Suffolk coast. It was the body of a middle-age man, a dapper little cadaver, its shroud a dark pin-striped suit which fitted the narrow body as elegantly in death as it had in life.
Synopsis. In Unnatural Causes, the murder of a local author along the sea coast doesn’t appear to be a murder at all. But a vacationing inspector Adam Dalgliesh is drawn into the case. Along the wild shoreline, Dalgliesh seeks to prove it was in fact a murder and who that murderer is.
Favorite Bits. I haven’t been able to read in almost a year-and-a-half, and set a very modest 13-book goal for this year’s Cannonball. I picked up and put down a handful of books before returning to two old favorites: mysteries and P.D. James. I like James’ morose inspector, her careful plotting, and her way of making a setting come absolutely alive. The rustic seaside town is wild and foreboding, which you would think would be cliche for a mystery, but instead sets the mood as it should. Unnatural Causes is one of James’ shorter books, but it is still dense with detail. I’m also always impressed how James makes Dalgliesh so compelling, even though he is such a taciturn figure. She finds ways to make him a human, even romantic figure in some ways.
Challenging Bits. Without giving anything away, some of the criminal’s motivations and qualities were a bit predictable. How they committed the murder was quite clever, but the villain’s character wasn’t terribly in-depth.
Recommendation. This is a solid mystery, if not a terribly deep one. James is a strong writer, particularly when it comes to her main protagonist, setting the scene, and thinking of clever plots. If nothing else, the book was easy to slip into, and given my flighty attention-span in recent times, I recommend it if you like your mystery with a lot of mood.