Adam Dalgleish - P.D. James

P.D. James (public domain)

Phyllis Dorothy James White (3 August 1920 – 27 November 2014) was a British novelist and has written some of the most clever and complex mysteries of all time. Her prose is dense and rich. There are always so many personal plots going on that there are any number of suspects to consider.

Although many of the books are in rather modern settings, most of the motives and lifestyles are rooted in the past that people seem powerless to escape.

There are 14 books in the Adam Dalgleish series, but she wrote many standalone mysteries as well.

#1 Cover Her Face (1962)

#2 A Mind to Murder (1963)

#3 Unnatural Causes (1967)

#4 Shroud for a Nightingale (1971)

#5 The Black Tower (1975)

#6 Death of an Expert Witness (1977)

#7 A Taste for Death (1986)

#8 Devises and Desires (1989)
Dalgleish must travel to the Norfolk Coast to take possession of a mill which his aunt, his last remaining relative, left to him in her will. While there, as a courtesy, he consults with the local police on a serial killer.

Apart from the killings, the most controversial topic in the area is the nuclear power plant. Detractors are organizing against nuclear power. A local artist is renting a cottage from an officer of the plant, but she wants him and his family out of the house. The director of the plant has been offered a better job in London, but his personal assistant does not want to stay with him.

Dalgleish is invited to a dinner party with a great many of these people, but one of the guests is late. When he does arrive, it is with the news that he has just discovered the most recent victim of the killer.

#9 Original Sin (1994)

#10 A Certain Justice (1997)

#11 Death in Holy Orders(2001)

#12 The Murder Room (2003)

#13 The Lighthouse (2005)

#14 The Private Patient (2008)