I'm not sure, but I think I first read P. D. James after seeing one of the stories on Mystery. Good stuff.
What is it with all these depressed detectives? Was Lord Peter Wimsey the pattern? Dalgliesh isn't as depressed as Inspector Morse, who seemed so depressed on television that I have never been seriously tempted to read the books - maybe someday - there was another one, I think, his name will come to me in the dead of night. Then there is Deborah Crombie's Duncan Kincaid - although he does seem to cheer up after he hooks up with Gemma. Did Lord Peter become happier after he and Harriet married? I guess Sayers has to go on the reread list. Then there is Jane Tennison - now that woman was depressed, but the series made me a life-long fan of Helen Mirren. Are British detectives more depressed than American detectives - I detect more research in my future.
This one has all the trappings of an English country house locked room mystery. And has the added advantage of having a victim that nobody much cares about. In addition, Dalgliesh himself rather falls for one of the members of the household. The wiki informs me that he is depressed because of the death of his wife (years before) in childbirth.
Oh well, everything comes out in the end, the orphaned child finds a good home, and we Americans are treated to yet another British village fete.
While googling, I discovered that James is a Baroness and a life peer in the House of Lords and that at age 92 is still living somewhere in England. She writes to the lifestyle of the minor aristocracy with legitimate authority.
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