dalgliesh, adam (fictitious character)

Adam Dalgliesh and his two young assistants search for clues in the deaths of two men found in the vestry of a London church--one rich and elegant, the other an alcoholic tramp.

In her latest Commander Adam Dalgliesh detective novel, James subtly deepens the complexities of his personality, making him an ever more credible protagonist. When two bodies are discovered with their throats slashed in a London church, Dalgleish is called upon to solve the case. One victim is Sir Paul Berowne, former Minister of the Crown; the other is a tramp accustomed to sleeping in the church vestibule. It seems that these deaths may be tied to those of two young women who have recently been employed in the Berowne household. Dalgleish feels an unusual empathy in this case; he had known Berowne and sensed several parallels in their lives.

The Dupayne, a small private museum on the edge of London's Hampstead Heath devoted to the interwar years 1919-39, is in turmoil. The trustees--the three children of the museum founder, old Max Dupayne--are bitterly at odds over whether it should be closed. Then one of them is brutally murdered, and what seemed to be no more than a family dispute erupts into horror. For even as Commander Adam Dalgiesh and his team investigate the first killing, a second corpse is discovered. Clearly, someone at the Dupayne is prepared to kill, and kill again. The case is fraught with danger and complexity from the outset, not least because of the range of possible suspects--and victims. And still more sinister, the murders appear to echo the notorious crimes of th epast featured in one of the museum's most popular galleries, the Murder Room. For Dalgiesh, P.D. James's formidable detective, the search for the murderer poses an unexpected complication. After years of bachelorhood, he has embarked on a promising new relationship with Emma Lavenham--first introduced in Death in Holy Orders--which is at a critical stage. Yet his struggle to solve the Dupayne murders faces him with a frustrating dilemma: each new development distances him further from commitment to the woman he loves. The Murder Room is a story dark with the passions that lie at the heart of crime, a masterful work of psychological intricacy.

When the son of Alred Treeves has met an untimely death, Sir Alred calls on Dalgliesh to investigate. No sooner does he arrive at the theological college on the East Anglican coast than he finds himself drawn into a maze of violent mystery.

A serial killer is stalking women on a lonely stretch of Norfolk coastland.

Combe Island, located off the Cornish coast of England, has shed its bloodstained history of piracy and cruelty to become a haven for over-stressed men and women, but when one of its visitors is found dead, the island's peace is shattered and Commander Adam Dalgliesh is called in to find the killer.

Police Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh is drawn into an explosive scenario of psychiatry, sex, and drugs, when he begins an investigation into the strange murder of the administrative head of London's Steen Psychiatric Clinic.