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The Private Patient (2008)

by P.D. James(Favorite Author)

3.76 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0571242448 (ISBN13: 9780571242443)

languge

English

genre

Mystery & Thriller

publisher

Faber & Faber

series

Adam Dalgliesh

review 1: For what feels like it may be the last of P. D. James's Adam Dalgliesh mysteries, she takes us to the classic location for a mystery novel: An English country estate. Being James and being set in a more modern era, though, there are variations.Cheverell Manor had been in the family from Tudor times until the most recent financial crisis. Ruined, the last of the old family sold the place to plastic surgeon George Chandler-Powell, who renovates it as a surgical clinic for private patients wishing greater privacy for their surgery than London would afford.One of these patients is investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn, who wants a facial scar removed because "I no longer have need of it." The operation is a success, but the patient dies. Of course she had help in dying...I en... morejoyed this book. For me it read more like a detective adventure than the artificial "puzzle mystery." You see the clues as the detectives discover them. For once I had a pretty good idea who the killer was before their identity was revealed. As usual James had established so many reasons why people at the Manor would want Rhoda Gradwyn dead that it seems a miracle she had survived as long as she did. The final motive for the murder was almost pulled out of nowhere, and only explained by a detailed confession; something killers don't give that often, except in P. D. James stories. That might be why James has Adam Dalgliesh say that motive is not important. Figure out who and how, and that will lead you to why. And if it doesn't lead you to why, knowing why isn't really necessary anyway. Fair enough, I suppose.This book reads as if James intends it to be the last Dalgliesh story. She wraps up a lot of details of the soap opera lives of her detectives, and if they weren't stumbling around miserable she'd have to make this mystery story stick to the, like, you know, MYSTERY, and we couldn't have that. Still, it was satisfying to see that Adam Dalgliesh has some chance to be happy now. Heaven knows we've watched him suffer long enough.
review 2: "The Private Patient" by P.D. James..This had all the elements of a good mystery by an excellent author in a faithfully followed series...but that evidently would have been too simple. The murder of an innocent person who had been emotionally & physically abused in her childhood had left a severe and noticeable scar on her face. Almost halfway through the book as the patient is readied for the surgery to remove the scar she is murdered. Finally Dagleish enters the picture.The mystery is there but so is lengthy and needless dialogue that lost my interest more than once. This was not interesting enough to keep me focused especially since the story wasn't focused on the mystery itself. less

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