Website design By BotEap.comA young nursing student is killed during a demonstration at the Nightingale Training College; she acts as a patient and two companions demonstrate intragastric feeding. Food believed to contain milk turns out to be disinfectant, making Nurse Pearce’s death extremely painful. It occurs in the presence of Miss Beale, the Inspector of the General Nursing Council, which greatly damages the College’s reputation, but is otherwise believed to be a common murder, or even an accident, so Inspector Bailey of the local police take over. the case. Only after another nursing student dies in her sleep about a week later does the case become serious enough to call Scotland Yard, and Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh enters the scene.

Website design By BotEap.comHe solves the crime pretty quickly, actually in one day, though it’s a long day for him, ending in an attempt on his own life. Shocked, he discovers that to understand the killer’s motive he has to go back in time, twenty-five years ago, actually, when World War II had just ended and one of the victims had yet to be born. Twenty-five years later, that war sparks another outbreak of violence: at Nightingale House.

Website design By BotEap.comThe third murder follows, and although Adam Dalgliesh knows the killer’s name, he can’t prove anything. This murderer is much more intelligent than the culprit of the first two crimes and knows not to leave evidence. However, Dalgliesh is not one to give up easily…

Website design By BotEap.comI must say I find the PD James books a bit depressing, but interesting nonetheless. You may never want to read them again (I did, but just to refresh my memory for the review), but they’re worth reading at least once. The mystery will keep him thrilled and, unless he is as smart as Dalgliesh himself, he will never guess the killer’s name until he reads the whole book. The characters are drawn with the precision of a true master, all different and all with just the right dose of Heaven and Hell in them, not even the victims portrayed as complete saints, or the killers complete villains. They are just people, with all that that entails. And they are also interesting: I would like to meet some of them, and it is a pity that they are not real.

Website design By BotEap.comMy absolute favorite is Adam Dalgliesh himself, a police officer and a poet, apparently a genius in both fields. He sounds like a really decent person, really honorable. People’s awareness of him is amazing; his understanding of his duty even more so. He is a perfect role model for a police officer, assuming perfection exists outside of the books.