Cover Her Face: An Adam Dalgliesh Mystery: 1

Product Information

Mrs Janet Erskine: Richard's wife, and mother to their two sons. The family vacationed in Dillmouth at the time when Helen disappeared.

In this passage, it is clear how different the Duchess is from the sly, plotting, unchaste widows that her brothers recently described. Though she shows boldness in proposing to Antonio and then inviting him to bed, she shows no sign of being unchaste. She has already married Antonio, of course, but even so, she wants to lie in bed with him even if they were to “lay a naked sword between” them to keep them chaste. This passage marks the transition from the Cardinal and Ferdinand’s warnings to the Duchess against marriage, to her willful decision to propose to Antonio anyway. It is the first real sense we get of her true character. The first introduction to the Duchess is through Antonio’s description earlier in the act, wherein he focuses on her virtue. Thus, when she protests to her brothers that she will honor their mandate, the audience is to believe her in the face of her described honesty. Christie's notebooks are open to interpretation in hindsight; John Curran argues that Sleeping Murder was still being planned at the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s. [6] His basis is the many changes to the title of the novel, since other authors had used her first title ideas: one of Christie's notebooks contain references to Cover Her Face (second title) under "Plans for Sept. 1947" and "Plans for Nov. 1948", suggesting she was planning to re-read and revise the manuscript. The story is essentially a character study of a young woman and her effect on a number of assorted personalities, ranging from a housekeeper-cook to a young physician.Adam Dalgliesh ( / d æ l ˈ ɡ l iː ʃ/ dal- GLEESH) is a fictional character who is the protagonist of fourteen mystery novels by P. D. James; the first being James's 1962 novel Cover Her Face. He also appears in the two novels featuring James's other detective, Cordelia Gray. Investigating the violent death at the manor house, Detective Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh becomes embroiled in the complicated passions beneath the calm surface of English country life. I'm beginning to think by some coincidence the very first PD James I read also happened to be the only interesting book she's ever written. Honestly, I would really like to like her, but I can't. Cover Her Face is her first novel and I wonder how she ever became successful this way. It suffers from all the flaws I've found pervasive in her other novels – boring descriptions, unlikeable characters, and zero suspense. The mystery plot has a lot of painstakingly crafted red herrings and clues, but I just didn't care enough to be interested in the solution. The naked sword, however, coming so close to her mention of her “humorous kindred,” also has an ominous note, and foreshadows the violence that will later separate them from each other. This imagery has special resonance since the Duchess just referred to their marriage as “this sacred Gordian,” which alludes to the Gordian knot that could not be untied--instead, Alexander cut it with his sword. In this case, neither the knot nor the Duchess and Antonio will be able to stay whole in the face of violence, no matter how intricately they are bound. He spoke with satisfaction for he was a countryman by birth and inclination and was often heard to complain of the proclivity of murderers to commit their crimes in overcrowded cities and unsalubrious tenements.'

I read this book EONS ago but had totally forgotten the plot, the mystery and the killer, so it was truly like reading it for the first time. Now I'm interested enough to reread more of my books by this author. If you haven't read it, go get a copy. It's a great book, a great mystery, filled with enough suspects and red herrings to keep the most avid mystery fan interested through the entire book. I thought I had it figured out but I was so off the mark it wasn't funny. Throughout the play, the Duchess’s own good nature seems to blind her to the true depths of brothers' evil. Not long after this speech, she tells Antonio in regards to them: “All discord, without this circumference,/Is only to be pitied, and not feared” (1.1.459-60). This analysis proves to be very wrong indeed. But in this speech, she admits that this is a “dangerous venture,” and goes so far as to compare it to war, showing the audience that it is not only her ignorance of the true danger of her marriage that leads her into it. Her love for Antonio is such that she proceeds even knowing what could be at stake.She paints both place and atmosphere with her words, and her characters become real under her touch. Such is to be expected from the author of novels such as Children of Men and Death Comes to Pemberly. In Cover Her FaceJames has created with a world which does not end with the denouncement and arrest of the murderer, but which continues on with all its failings. However, Ms. James does conveniently write, 'his thoughts were,' or 'she thought,' etc.., but if you read quite speedily and are accustomed to quotation marks indicating spoken dialogue, well then, get with the program! This writer is an artist and one of the finest of her generation! I have not read the first Adam Dalgleish novel for some time, so it was a pleasure to return to P D James and her very first book. In some ways this is a very typical mystery. The Maxie family live in the big house, in somewhat genteel poverty, with the only full time staff member the loyal Martha. As well as the housework and cooking, Mr Maxie is bedridden, so Mrs Maxie employs Sally Jupp, an unmarried mother as a house-parlourmaid. She is convinced by Miss Liddell, the Warden of St Mary’s Refuge for Girls, that Sally will be a hard worker, but the arrival of sly, devious and attractive Sally causes chaos within the house. On the night of the Church Fete, held at Martingale, home of the Maxie’s, the young woman is killed. James, P. D. (17 April 2012). Shroud for a Nightingale. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4516-9779-7.

A great read, as are the other books in the series. I binged them over the course of a few weeks, and enjoyed them all – and shall read them again. In Sleeping Murder, the concept of an unknown person, X, is briefly used by the characters figuring out what happened to Helen. In Curtain, Poirot's last case, written about the same time, Captain Hastings refers to the murderer Poirot seeks as Mr X. The notation is used throughout Curtain, but just briefly in Sleeping Murder. In both novels, X proved to be a character already well-known to other characters in the novel. Deborah later visits Stephen at the hospital where he works and sees her brother talking with Sally. Stephen says that Sally had brought him some of their terminally ill father's sleeping tablets, Sommeil, which she found under old Mr. Maxie's bed. Stephen suspects that Mr. Maxie has managed to deceive his devoted servant Martha, pretending to take the tablets when he is simply concealing them for a suicide attempt. On the day of St. Cedd's church fete, Sally announces that Stephen has asked her to marry him. The following day, Martha complains that Sally has overslept again. On entering the room, Sally's strangled body is found. Detective Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh and Detective Sergeant Martin arrive and begin their investigation. His character as Dalgleish is diffident, soft-spoken, observant, intellectual -- a poet, no less. But he is a super-smart sleuth who can be tough if the circumstances so warrant.

She began hiding her face after her breakthrough as a solo artist

Moubayed, Sami (23 July 2018). "Syrian actress dies 'mysteriously' in Paris". Gulf News . Retrieved 28 March 2020. I am saying this because I've seen other reviewers say that they've guessed who the murderer is, in a way as if this was a bad thing. Well, I've guessed, too, but I can see nothing wrong with it. After all, I find the resolutions of most murder mysteries so convoluted that nobody can really guess all the intricacies and coincidences, so it's not like one can guess everything. A television version of the novel was produced for Britain's ITV network in 1985. It starred Roy Marsden as Adam Dalgliesh, John Vine as Inspector John Massingham (instead of Detective Sergeant Martin), Phyllis Calvert as Eleanor Maxie, Rupert Frazer as Stephen Maxie, Mel Martin as Deborah Riscoe, Julian Glover as Felix Hearne, and Kim Thomson as Sally Jupp. As the television adaptation was set contemporaneously but the characters' ages had to remain unchanged, Felix Hearne's military service was relocated to Cyprus and a secondary storyline was added about Cypriot drug-dealers. It was filmed at Rainthorpe Hall in Norfolk. Gwenda Halliday Reed: 21 years old and newly married woman from New Zealand, settling in England with her new husband. Bosola’s death speech does little to untangle this complexity. Though almost all of the evil he has done has been motivated purely by selfishness, he here reveals no evidence of selfishness. Though he is facing the physical “pain” of death, he does not regret avenging the Duchess and Antonio, for it is “no harm” “to die/In so good a quarrel.” Though he himself was directly responsible for much of their misfortune, he has taken their side as one worthy of "good" so happily that he faces his own death without care.