Cover her face

Cover Her Face is a bit of a mess. It seems to belong to a different generation of mystery novels than P.D. James' later novels. It's set in an English country estate with lots of judgmental villagers, not that different than Agatha Christie's Mrs. Marple novels, just without the...uh... charming ethnic stereotypes? (That's sarcasm.)

Adam Dalgleish is a bit of a non-entity, there's none of the depth that comes in into her later novels featuring the character. There's a lot of judgey slut and victim shaming and maybe that's an accurate depiction of village morés, but it's still not that fun to read. And, frankly, the puzzle box plot was not that interesting and I found it extremely tedious to finish.

For completists only, if you are looking to get into P.D. James' novels, I would pick a different starting place.

Short review:I have been encouraged to pick up Adam Dalgliesh mysteries because I have liked Gamache and Bruno and some others. I did not realize that it had been originally written in 1961, it does not feel dated at all. It does feel a bit like Murder on the Orient Express in some of its set up. I was listening to a Great Courses lecture on great books and it had a section on books that are not traditionally thought of as great books and mentioned this book as the start of mysteries moving from the more formulaic to more character based. I can see that because Dalgliesh feels a good bit like Gamache. But I also think that the lecture was probably taking into account the rest of the series not just this first book. I have been warned that the series takes a few books to really catch hold. So I will pick up some more. I have the first six on Kindle, but I listened to most of this on audiobook from the library. I will probably continue to do that.

My only slightly longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/cover-her-face/

This was my first book by PD James and it surpassed my expectations. It was very much in the style of classic detective mysteries and it was well-plotted and well-characterized. In fact, it was hard to put down. My only complaints would be the length of the paragraphs and how difficult it was to remember which character is which, particularly in the beginning. I plan on keeping going with the series.

I like PD James so much that I'm going back through her bibliography to make sure I've read them all. I didn't love this one and was struck more than in most of James' work by the obsession with class (so very British. I know).
Dalgleish isn't quite the central character here yet and, partly due to that, no character in the novel is particularly likable.