Dalgliesh comes across as boring and extremely arrogant and aloof in this complicated mess of a book. 3 stars as P D James has a poetic way with words.

P.D. James is a popular author, and her novels get consistently good reviews. Therefore, I thought that I was going to enjoy this book. However, I did not. The plot was ok, if a little slow, but I didn't like the attitudes expressed towards ethnic minorities and disabled people. There was also a hint of prejudice towards gay men. These are my personal reasons for not recommending this book.

Always a good read.

Ehhh

3.3/5

More of a crime novel than a mystery novel in that the inspector does not really make much progress with the case. It is also slow at many points, including at the start, when the introduction to the characters felt well-written and psychologically astute, yet quite boring at the same time.

Pros:
- James treats the plight of the disabled sympathetically yet realistically, evoking a sense of the body horror of finding your body failing your mind, and in some senses, your dreams and goals.
- The atmosphere is slow and foreboding, which makes it ominous and atmospheric, yet at times a little soporific. James is a good writer who uses the setting in the South of England to good effect.

Cons:
- The villain was a little obvious I thought - there was one character who just broadly did not belong in the whole place. As a result, it took me a while to work up the interest to finish reading it.
- This novel works a bit better as crime literary fiction than as a mystery novel because the main appeal to me was more about the moral blackness of the crime and its set-up, rather than any sense of problem-solving or suspense. But this is arguably my fault for having expectations which the author herself did not advertise.

"In this job it wasn't the last piece of jigsaw, the easiest of all, that was important. No, it was the neglected, uninteresting small segment which, slotted into place, suddenly made sense of so many other discarded pieces"

"The New Queen of Crime" proclaims the front cover of "The Black Tower" by P.D.James. Having never heard of either the author or the book before, I set my expectations on an Agatha Chrisie like murder mystery. In what is probably a nod to the detective genre, we have a character called Moriarty. The hero here, Adam Dalgliesh - commander of Scotland Yard, is recuperating from an misdiagnosed illness (probably something to do with an earlier novel in the series). A letter from a childhood companion, the fatherly figure of a priest, requesting his professional advice takes him to Toynton Village in coastal England. Father Baddeley is the "Chaplain to Toynton Grange, a private home for the young disabled". Dalgelish takes this as an opportunity to convalesce (a word used often in the book) and brood over his decision to quit detective work. However he reaches to find that his 90 year old friend is dead, buried and cremated. The cause is said to be natural, but Daeglish's is not so sure.

Very soon into the book, if you make past the tough first few pages, you realize that P.D.James is no Agatha Christie. This is no procedural crime investigation. We have a protagonist just back from a near death experience, with his own mid-life crisis. And the atmosphere is dark. P.D.James is a solid writer, capturing the darkness so well that this could be a Scandinavian thriller. The characters only add to the goriness. There is no white or black, and every character is grey. A man who was cured of a disease by a divine miracle, but who does charity for self-gratification. An ex-convict, a nurse with a history of violence, a promiscuous woman struggling to get out of the place, an illegitimate couple, an unpredictable rich art-collector and a kleptomaniac. The disabled, helpless characters have their own perversions too, and their emotions are more of spite, hate and envy than love. There are mystery poison letters floating around, and deaths that look natural. There is no evidence of foul-play though, and our protagonist does not want to get too invested. After all, Toynton Grange seems like a place where not much would be out of ordinary. As "The Black Tower" trots to an unpredictable climax, I felt satisfied at having read the work of a wonderful writer. Others may not feel so, for this book lacks most elements expected of a detective novel. But who are we to fit books into genres and determine how it is to be structured? I would recommend this book for the sheer darkness of the atmosphere, with dialogues such as "We all suffer from a progressive incurable disease. We call it life". Go for it, unless you don't like getting a bit scared and depressed.

As usual, complicated plot, gripping.