Rating: 
Summary: wish I could give it a better review
Review: The writing was good, but the subject was dull. And didn't anyone else feel a little offended that at least three of the "good guys" thought that it was just a shame that poor Father John was being persecuted when all he had done was fondle a few choirboys - after all it wasn't like he raped them. While I might be willing to believe that one character - or even two - could be that backward in this day and age, would you really expect that from three of them, and two of those police officers? And Adam Dalgliesh gets less and less believable with every book - personally, I wish she'd write another Cordelia Gray book.
Rating: 
Summary: Atmosphere & Suspense
Review: This being the first Adam Dalgliesh novel in almost four years, I was excited and, once the novel was read, quite pleased. The setting for this book, a somewhat dark and sinister theological college on the bleak East Anglian coast, provides great opportunities for dark and foreboding atmosphere, which the author does not miss. The characters were well-drawn and fit the novel's purposes perfectly, and the prose was intelligent, detailed, and outstanding. The premise of "Death In Holy Orders" is that one of the pupils at the college died under quite horrid and distressing circumstances, and the boy's father is not satisfied with the results of the inquest. Enter protagonist Adam Dalgliesh, a Commander of New Scotland Yard. He is sent to the college to quietly investigate, and his experience there soon becomes all too unsettling. There is more death (how much more, and if it is murder or not, I will not disclose), but the book is never for a moment dull. Each chapter serves a purpose. There are minor subplots (red herrings, perhaps), but each of them *does* pertain to the story, and none of them divert the book from its very good pacing. The college itself is equipped with a main house, cottages, twin towers, and an old church. The author is quite adept at positively evoking the darker elements of such a setting, while keeping its religious virtues somewhat intact. This has the inclusion of a modern-day police procedural, but the style and format of a golden-age mystery. There is, of course, some commentary on the social and institutional stability of the world as it is today, themes common to P.D. James novels. One star is deducted from this review for the general outcome of the 'whodunit' aspect of the book. While, in the case of a P.D. James novel, that part of the story isn't always the most important, here it left me with little conviction. That is all I will say about that matter. It is never my intention to give away too much in a review. Read this book if you're looking for a modern day golden age-style mystery, with real and believable characters, suspenseful scenes, foreboding atmosphere, and elegant prose. You won't be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: A six star winner
Review: The coroner's jury concluded that St. Anselm's Theological College student Ronald Treeves died accidentally. However, his adoptive father has doubts about his son's death. He uses his political influence as a major businessman with government ties to persuade senior officials of New Scotland Yard to investigate what really happened to Ronald. His superior Harkness sends Commander Adam Dalgeish to the school located in East Anglia.Though he expects to find it was nothing but an accident, Adam enjoys the idea of visiting St. Anselm's, a place he once attended. However, Adam quickly revises his idea of a working vacation when someone beats to death an unpopular Archdeacon. Now Adam believes that Treeves is right when he insists his son was murdered and the law enforcement official knows he has his work cut out to catch a clever but vicious killer. As expected in a P.D. James' who-done-it, everyone has a motive, a means, and an opportunity though in DEATH IN HOLY ORDERS some of the suspect's motives seem a bit stretched. Faced with a plethora of potential culprits, Dalgeish shows why his investigations are fun to observe. The story line is well written and the villain is a good opponent for Dalgeish. The Grand Dame of the British police procedural, Ms. James continues to provide her fans with a fresh mystery that will send new readers seeking previous Dalgeish novels (see A CERTAIN JUSTICE). Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: Death by Boredom
Review: When I heard that Adam Dalgliesh was making another appearance, I was simply overjoyed. What a let down! Set in James' favorite location of East Anglia,the book is about the investigation of death, by suffocation, of a young ordinand at an Anglican theological school. Like Unsuitable Job for a Woman (a MUCH better book), the wealthy and powerful father is not satisfied by the verdict. Of course, this is not the end of the murders. From the theft of a consecrated wafer, to a specious papyrus porporting to be from Pontious Pilate, we meet a group of students,teachers and priests. None of the characters engages our sympathy or concern. They don't seem to have much depth or motivation. The murderer is revealed at the end of the book in a most unsatisfactory, anti-climatic way. There are several twists and turns including an incestuous relationship between a half sister and brother; other than being somewhat distasteful,adds little to the story. Again, if we cared about the poor, unfortunate victims, this reveal might have had more impact. PD James apparently feels the necessity to have Dalgleish find a mate,at this late date, so we are introduced to a stunningly beautiful, clever professor from Cambridge. Ho Hum. How much more interesting and intriguing was Cordelia Grey in her earlier books. Unfortunately, Baroness James was so angry at the destruction of Cordelia Grey in subsequent adaptations of her works on British TV, she vowed never to write another book with Grey as heroine. Talk about a really depressing death! Kate Miskin makes another appearance, but she seems, colorless,depressed and out of sorts in this book. I know exactly how she feels.
Rating:
Summary: James does it again! Hallelujah!
Review: Whoever loves artful writing and whodunit entwined will love P. D. James' latest Adam Dalgleish mystery. Wonderfully set on the East Anglian coast midst ever-changing and threatening nature where an holy order of priests and would-be priests/ordinands reside, this mystery unwinds around the suspicious accidental death of a rich man's son. And once the on leave Dalgleish joins the inquiry, murders just keep coming. There is romantic, even incestuous, human fraility in this four part novel. There are jealousy, animosity, cross purposes, greed, deceit, anger, depression and revenge at work. Each character is skillfully drawn, especially those that are linked with Dalgleish's past and present, and the setting exacts added suspense to a seemingly pastoral setting. The decline of the Arbuthnot estate's endowed theological seminary is central to the plot. One can guess that each character is linked to that demise in some fashion. And just as in a good Agatha Christie novel, the characters are tied to one another openly and in disguise, and await the skillful unraveling of the poetic and sensitive intellect of Dalgleish and his cohorts Kate, Piers, and Robbins. Such a pleasure to relax into a well-written tome! James makes Dalgleish a friend of the reader, a character come to life, someone we know and willingly follow into a mystery that needs solving.
Rating:
Summary: A Story of the Fifth Commandment among others
Review: Intrigued by an amazon.com promo for a murder mystery from a famous writer (I had never heard of) at an elitist, isolated theological seminary, I bought the book. Having lived in Canada for awhile, I was intrigued by the language and looked up many words I was unfamiliar with. This is intricately woven tale beginning and ending with a detective who likes poetry and was at the very sem murder scene as a boy, who later is the lead Scotland Yard detective whose crack team solved the mystery. It surges and waxes like the sea around each new character who is knit into the growing fabric with all the threads of suspect possibility. Complexity is added through possible divesture of the sem, concern about treasured art and mysterious papyrus from Pontius Pilate era all add to the intrigue. If this is indicative of Ms.James work, she is truly gifted. One might also check out Paul Maier's Skeleton in God's Closet if you like thrillers.
Rating:
Summary: an excellent mystery novel
Review: If you haven't figured out yet why P.D. James is considered the Queen of modern mysteries, her latest Adam Dalglish mystery novel, "Death In Holy Orders, " should definitely clue you in. From the very first chapter where she describes the bleak bit of coast of East Anglia where the small theological college of St. Anselm's is located, to the sands of the beach, to the very last chapter, where she resolves the mystery at hand -- she draws the reader into the little isolated world at St. Ansem's that she has created, leaving us quite enthralled. When Ronald Treves is found smothered beneath a fall of sands, it is assumed that he had an accident. And indeed the result of the inquest is that his death was accidental. However Ronald's father, an arrogant, rich and powerful businessman receives an anonymous note that suggests that Ronald's death was anything but accidental; and he turns up at Scotland Yard, demanding that Dalglish investigate the matter. Since Dalglish is going on leave to East Anglia, and because he has a few nostalgic childhood memories about St. Anselm's, Dalglish sees no harm in visiting the college and asking a few discreet questions. Dalglish's arrival however coincides with the unwanted arrival of Archdeacon Crampton. St. Anselm's however is facing foreclosure. It is not a big college and with only a small intake of students. The Church has decided that it is too expensive to keep open, and question right now is mainly when to close the college. And Archdeacon Crampton has come to St. Anselm's with the intent to see it's closing sooner rather than later. Crampton is an ambitious and rather brusque man who manages to get on everyone's bad side within minutes of his arrival, from Father Sebastian who runs the college, to the lay persons who live and work at the college. And at the college currently are two people whom Crampton has run afoul of: a visiting policeman, Yarwood, and a priest, John Betterton. Years ago Yarwood had been in charge of the Crampton's first wife's death; and he had been of the opinion that Crampton had somehow been involved in this death, but had been prevented from seeing the case to it's close because Crampton had complained of police brutality. While Betterton had served time in prison as a sex offender because of Crampton. Dalglish finds himself in the middle of a college swimming with undercurrents and emotions. And the very first night of Crampton's arrival also sees his murder. Who murdered Crampton? There are a host of suspects and motives, and Dalglish and his team will have much to go through in order to unmask the killer. P.D. James is mistress in the art of storytelling, and this lates novel is a testimony to her artistry. Her writing style is short, succinct and lyrical. The deserted coast, the rickety cliffs ontop of which St. Anselm's is located, the wind and the sea -- James writes in a 'painterly' manner, and all these things come alive under her pen, along with the college and all it's inhabitants. But the thing that I like most about James is the manner in which she depicts all the characters in her books: she shades them in varying degrees of gray, so that no one is truly evil or conversely truly pure. "Death In Holy Orders" is a great read and an excellent novel.
Rating:
Summary: Death or murder-religious, secular or ?
Review: An Adam Dalgleigh novel set in an Anglican theological seminary.A student is found dead on the beach, suffocated by sand from a crumbling cliff. The death is ruled accidental but the boy's wealthy father wants the case re-evaluated; Dalgleigh, due leave and having as a boy spent summers at the college, returns there to investigate and to reacquaint himself with the peaceful community he enjoyed as a boy. There are other visitors whose reasons for being there are darker and a series of questionable deaths lead to an impressive, powerful tale of religion, greed and power going back over 25 years.
Rating:
Summary: James goes 'spiritual' in this thriller!
Review: Whether she's the reigning "Queen of Crime" or not (and she probably doesn't care!), P.D. James is unbeatable with the police procedural. And her latest, "Death in Holy Orders" is, once again, James par excellence. What scope, what depth, what sheer writing talent when it comes to a gripping, mesmerizing, no-holds-barred whodunit! James brushes aside her critics and continues writing in the way she knows best, unassuming and literate, psychological and breath-taking! And her main man, Adam Dalgleish, is back, along with his trusted assistants, Kate Miskin and Piers Tarrant, as the superintendent enters ecclesiastical waters in this episode. A theological student has been found dead on the East Anglian shore, a tragedy ruled "accidental." However, pressed by the student's father, Dalgleish re-examines the ruling and James is off to the races in typical (read that "exciting") style. Known as the "dark poet of Scotland Yard," Dalgleish finds himself, once again, in familiar territory, as he recalls having visited the College of St. Anselm in his youth; however, momentary nostalgia aside, he finds more than he could possibly have anticipated. Of course, there is soon another death and Dalgleish's own "little gray cells" begin working overtime! Indeed, this may be the most horrifying case he's encountered, as James explores evil as she's never done before. Once again, James takes some time to present Dalgleish, the man, as well. Each of the books in his series provides more and more insight into this incredibly complex policeman. Dalgleish fans will welcome this, of course. "Death in Holy Orders" is yet another of those books that find themselves almost impossible to put down. James and Dalgleish--what a combination, what a read! (Billyjhobbs@tyler.net)
Rating:
Summary: New to P.D. James
Review: I had not read P.D. James before but picked this book up in the airport in Amsterdam -- it was available in Europe before in the USA apparently. This may not be a very useful review, because I have already lent to book to another person in my book club -- a P.D. James "frequent reader". I loved the setting -- East Anglia part of England. I really enjoyed her characters -- they were well developed and interesting. I believe that the detective "AD" is a frequent character of her novels and he is in this one too. Now that I have read P.D. James, I will be reading more of her work.
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