Rating: 
Summary: Rich in Characters, Place, History, Social Mores and Plot
Review: Death in Holy Orders is a gem, and will delight long-time P.D. James fans as well as those for whom this is an introduction to her work. Well-known for her deep development of characters, this mystery is equally strong in giving you the locale (a small theological college perched on the sand cliffs near the North Sea in East Anglia), history (a twining of religion and family), social mores (actions have consequences), and a nicely detailed plot (four deaths, Church of England politics, and new connections for Adam Dalgliesh). Rarely is a book rich in all of these elements. Be warned. It's hard to put this book down! I finished reading at 1:22 a.m. despite needing to get up early this morning. Mystery purists will complain that the book reveals the villain too early. Actually, there's a benefit, because it allows the book to take on the dramatic qualitites of a fine novel, as well as a mystery. I delayed reading this book because the title didn't really grab me. I don't know much about the Church of England, and felt that I would soon be lost. Actually, although I probably didn't grasp all of the details, the religious context did not cause me to lose the thread either. Although set at a theological college, the story deals more broadly with issues throughout society. The book opens with a fascinating literary device. A college staff member, Margaret Munroe, has found the body of a young student (ordinand) at the college buried under a pile of sand from a collapsed cliff. To ease her distress, she has been asked to write an account of the experience. Her exposition develops her character as well as the background of the book's story. This section serves like one of a pair of bookends to be matched at the end by a letter from the villain explaining the events described in the book. From these two examples, you can see the care with which Baroness James has developed her characters and story. You will feel that you know and understand quite a lot about over a dozen characters, and most of them you will find interesting and attractive to know more about. In most cases, some of the story will develop through their thoughts so that you can get inside of their reality. The book has much more action than the typical P.D. James mystery, and thus makes it more modern in that sense. On the other hand, she pays close attention to the classic elements of mysery by making it clear that the events are tied to someone in residence. You will be reminded of And Then There Were None in many ways, although I found this novel much better done than that Dame Agatha Christie classic. Adam Dalgliesh had visited the college, St. Anselm's, when he was young, and has a reunion with the former head of the college, Father Martin. That connection brings Adam Dalgliesh inside the story more than usual, which is all to the good. He is involved in an unlikely way. The dead ordinand, Ronald Treeves, was the adopted son of Sir Alred Treeves, a wealthy munitions industrialist. Sir Alred wants to know more about the circumstances, and asks Scotland Yard to send Dalgliesh, the Yard's most famous commander, to check it out. Dalgliesh has planned to take some personal time to visit the area and agrees. Through a series of unusual circumstances, the later investigations become his officially as well. The plot is delightful in that Baroness James continually gives the reader hints before the investigation turns them up. Yet, the plot remains obscure enough that although we know about more crimes and complications than Scotland Yard does, we still don't know who did what until she chooses to raise the curtain for us. It's a nifty bit of slight of hand, while making the reader feel welcome. Dalgliesh's connection to poetry is nicely placed into the story in a way that will delight long-term fans of this element of his character. After you finish reading this story, you should think about how actions you have taken or could take in the future could have unintended, negative consequences. How can you avoid those potential consequences? How can you help others prepare for them? Those issues are at the core of the moral of this story, and are good food for thought for us all. Take a bow, Baroness James. You deserve it!
Rating: 
Summary: A fairly typical P.D. James
Review: I love her writing but for some reason the ending of almost all of her books doesn't quite live up to the rest of the book. I still enjoy her books. This one is well written and its full of vivid descriptions of windy costal nights and the fury of the ocean. I found some of the characters less than believable but that didn't take much from the enjoyment of the book. I good read for a PD James fan but probably not for someone who hasn't read her before.
Rating:
Summary: P.D. James is a True Artist
Review: That she is nearly or already 80 years old and still writes with such nuanced depth is amazing. This book is a non-stop read; her powers of observation and her literary skills are still top rate and I highly recommend this book to all lovers of her mysteries. As a fledgling writer of 30, she gives hope that the best is yet to come. Buy it asap. 5 Stars from me.
Rating: 
Summary: Good but not as great as the earlier titles
Review: I've been a fan of P. D. James's work for decades. She's written some astonishingly good books, a few that were clunky, and one attempt at science fiction that was scarcely readable. While she can still surprise the reader with an almost quintessentially British matter-of-factness about issues both psychological and sexual, in this book Adam Dalgleish has lost much of his heat and intensity, much of his unique (and romantic) appeal. If this were the first book for a new reader, they probably wouldn't find the Commander the compellingly charismatic figure he was in earlier books. Death In Holy Orders just isn't up to the remarkable level of The Skull Beneath The Skin (which doesn't feature Dalgleish at all) but which is one of the finest mysteries James (or anyone else)has ever written.
That said, her plotting skill is very much intact and I kept on reading, even though at times the material gets very dense indeed--to the extent that I was tempted to skip pages of details on the new versus the old Anglicanism. The setting is wonderfully realized, the secondary characters are well drawn and are, upon occasion, more interesting than the primary ones. The resolution is somewhat less than satisfying, and I found it hard to believe in the device (a letter) James uses at the denouement to tie everything together. If you're new to James, I would suggest starting with the earlier books and working up to this one. You'll get a better understanding of Dalgleish and be, as a result, more sympathetic to his depiction and his actions in this book.
Rating:
Summary: "Outside the sun, inside the killing sleet"
Review: There is nothing more pleasurable than being curled up with a good book and this is one of the finest. I love murder mysteries but friends have deplored my "lack" of good literature. Pick up one of P.D. James' books and fall in love with her prose--beautiful ... and literate. About the murder/s ... she pays homage to the Golden Era of murder mysteries; several times Ms Christie's name is mentioned (sometimes in jest!)It is a perfect setting after all--lonely theological college by the cold Northwest coast of England, a grey and windy location made all the more mysterious by the loneliness and the image of a 'drowned village' a mile offshore. The sea is cutting into the land and it is here, at land's end, that the first body is found, buried face first in sand. And so it goes ... Like a previous reviewer, I took back a star because I wasn't satisfied with the revelation. There are some bits that I, try as I did, cannot suspend disbelief. But when all is said and done, I am still left curled up and pleased, grateful that yet another brilliant author has given me a slice of life, albeit fiction, and a journey.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Possible Ending to a Good Series
Review: I think of P.D. James as the current reigning queen of British mysteries. Her latest book is a very satisfactory return to her main character, Commander Adam Dalgliesh. The setting is an anachronistic theological college in East Anglia, a place out of the commander's past. The tone of the novel is elegiac and the primary tension is supplied by the effect of a violent murder and subsequent police investigation upon the members of the small religious community. The book jacket indicates that Baroness James turned 80 in 2000. I could not help but feel that this book may be her last Adam Dalgliesh novel and that she was trying to tie up some loose ends in a less conclusory manner than Colin Dexter with his Inspector Morse series. No fan of the Adam Dalgliesh series should miss this book and for any fan of British murder mysteries who has not read P.D. James before, this book is a good place to start before working back to her earlier books. A small quibble -- the identity of murderer becomes known with over 100 pages remaining so that the ending is a bit anticlimactic. But overall this is a very satisfactory addition to Baronness James' body of work and if it proves to be her last Adam Dalgliesh novel, she has acquitted him well.
Rating:
Summary: A joy to be reunited with Adam Dalglish
Review: P. D. James is, without doubt, the greatest living mystery writer today. Bar none. "Death In Holy Orders", her latest Adam Dalglish offering, merely cements this fact - as if it needed it. The body of a young ordinand is discovered, smothered by a collapse of sand, on the beach near St. Anselem's, a theological college on the lonely shores of East Anglia. Ironically, St. Anselem's was also a particularly important place in Dalglish's boyhood and, when he is called to investigate this shocking murder, his journey there represents in microcosm the disparity between the new England and the old, the former way of living butting heads with the new, a theme carried delicately throughout the book in many ways, including the characters and how they live and think. Subsequently, two more murders are committed - the last a most gruesome, shocking dispatching taking place in the chapel of all places - and Dalglish calls in Kate Miskin and company to assist him in finding the perpetrator. A new twist added here is the subtle romantic situation occurring in the background between Dalglish and one of the people staying at the college during the murders. The ending is more satisfying than "A Certain Justice" and I liked the fact that Ms. James alludes to Dalglish's feelings about the end of the matter written about in "Justice". He feels he failed, somehow, and these feelings make finding this latest killer an even more urgent matter - not only to stop him killing again, but to reassure Dalglish that justice does, indeed, come around more often than not. A wonderful novel from a terrific writer.
Rating:
Summary: Do not go gently.
Review: The inevitable passing of an older way of life leads to murder at an Anglican theological college on the East Anglian coast. The backdrop includes a mother who never recovered from the loss of her son, a priceless painting, and an group of would-be priests in a tradition of the church that is clearly about to fade. Honestly, James would probably get five stars from me just for writing another Dalgliesh mystery, but Death in Holy Orders earns it in its own right. The novel is delicate, literate, and probes issues that extend beyond a local murder. James writes with sympathy for all characters, and they are heartbreakingly real. Like in the later Christie novels, you can hear her waving goodbye to an older England. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: I can't wait for the next one!
Review: P.D. James is my favorite writer of this particular genre. In this book, I would have wished that her characters and plot had been tied more to our univeral angst. I would like to know of her tale of the common folks living very much in these times, especially those us living in but not of the world of commerce and the drama of rising and falling stock markets. I didn't care about any of these characters, even Adam seemed so one dimensional. If lives full of anachronisms is what we are about these days, Ms. James succeeded. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps the characters of this book do represent the self absorbed, aggressors we all live with these days. I am however,waiting for and will appreciate her gift of a new novel as I do all of them. Give Adam his soulful thoughts back again, please.
Rating:
Summary: In the Characters' Heads ...
Review: Nobody gets inside a character's head, lets you see through their eyes, experience their feelings, like P.D. James. You're right there, feeling the same horror a main character feels on discovering a body, understanding completely that feeling of needing to DO something, of bewilderment at seeing something that used to be a person you knew and now is lifeless meat. So many wonderful details! This too, is one of James' strengths. I really felt right there in an elite seminary on a disintegrating coastline pounded by weather. In fact, the book was so absorbing that I read it straight through, with barely a stop for sleep! A friend of mine, unfamiliar with James' other works, asked me a question you may also be asking yourself: "Can I start here, or do I need to read the others first?" My answer is, go right ahead and start here. It stands well on its own; recurring characters are introduced gracefully and with just enough backstory to bring a new reader up to speed while not boring a reader already familiar. James is part of the newer generation of British women mystery authors, along with writers like Ngaio Marsh -- more modern-feeling than Christie or Sayers, but if you like Sayers in particular, I think you'll like James. And if you're already been thru the previous ten AD mysteries? You'll love this one. It's definitely one of the best yet. I'm really really happy I bought it right when it came out, hardcover price notwithstanding.
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