Phyllis Dorothy James White is indeed an elegant writer of detective stories. I have dipped into her work before and enjoyed it, particularly the many stories about the police commander Adam Dalgliesh. The author conspires to make us immediately feel empathy for this character, and he writes poetry which definitely works for me.
I decided to start at the beginning of this long run of Dalgliesh books and so have just read ‘Cover Her Face,’ which is also her first ever published novel. It seems like a late addition to the so called ‘Golden Age’ of detective stories, usually taken to be the 1930s and 1940s while PD James was writing in the 1960s and onward.
‘Cover Her Face’ sticks quite closely to Golden Age conventions, particularly that of misleading the reader until the end when the most unlikely character is revealed to be the villain. The setting also conforms as it is a country house, importantly, owned by the landed gentry, not existing as the second home of the aristocracy. These rules and protocols were really cliches used in a certain style of novel, almost as a game. One Ronald Knox took this a step further in 1929 and codified these ‘regulations’ into 10 so called ‘commandments.’ I won’t relate all of them but they are quite amusing e.g. There can only be one secret passage involved and nothing supernatural is allowed. Also, the detective cannot end up being the villain. This is something Agatha Christie certainly didn’t adhere to! If you are interested and want to see them all then just put ‘Knox Decalogue’ into Google and there they will be.
One thing that sets ‘Cover Her Face’ apart from true Golden Age mysteries is that PD James gives us a little social history and thus shows us how society changed from pre-war to post Second World War. The family at the centre of this story is classically asset rich and cash poor, without the wealth that land ownership had previously given. There are several examples of characters implying that the house and the estate will soon have to be sold and there are the inevitable problems with staff. PD James also tackles (quite bravely in the early 1960s) society’s approach to illegitimate children. Interesting to note that this word has practically disappeared in my life time but in the sixties there were still ‘homes’ for disgraced unmarried mothers.
PD James is skilled at sending the reader in the wrong direction. There were several times when I thought I might know who the villain was but inevitably I was mistaken. This story is layered. By that I mean there is the main thrust of the plot which forms the narrative but there are also the thoughts and actions and lives of the supplementary characters. Again, by convention there is a vicar and a doctor and those who may or may not be couples.
This book offers a satisfying read and I think I will head for numbers two and three in this long canon of stories about Adam Dalgliesh.