A TASTE FOR
DEATH:
The Detective
Fiction of P.D. James
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“I would even claim for Mrs. James a
certain paradoxical originality in the success with which she has
revitalised a
genre considered by many thriller-readers to be past its prime, and
assumed by
some to be defunct. Heroically remaining
within the classical tradition of scrupulous ingenuity established by
Agatha
Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Ngaio Marsh, she proudly scorns the
alibi which
might have been provided by a self-conscious suggestion of pastiche. Her style is literate, her plots are
complicated, her clues are abundant and fair, and her solutions are
intended to
come as a surprise without straining credulity beyond that subtle point
which
is instinctively recognised and respected by addicts and practitioners
alike. Her murders are committed in that
fascinating world of the crime-writer’s imagination which is so very
nearly
like real life on the surface, but where human behaviour must be
governed by
alien, arbitrary and artificial laws – the cosy, paranoid universe of
an
animated crossword puzzle. Her obedience
to the good old whodunit rules laid down by her elder colleagues gives
her work
an attractively old-fashioned air, but this is often contradicted by
the
accuracy of her social and psychological observation and by an
underlying,
modern melancholy.”
– Times Literary Supplement, 13th December 1974
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What's New:
These pages copyright Nicholas Lester Fuller,
2000--2010. Created 5th December 2004.
