Since a significant number of people consider P. D. James the best mystery writer around, it's an occasion whenever she publishes a new Adam Dalgliesh novel. In addition to the comfort of knowing there's another mystery starring the suave, poetry-writing Scotland Yard detective, there's a sense of expectation: Did Ms. James, considered one of the most painstaking and original writers of mysteries, top herself? Is this one better than, say, "A Taste for Death" or "Innocent Blood"?
For Ms. James is, if nothing else, one who takes mystery-writing seriously. As she told The Sun in a 1993 interview: "You've got at least five or six casualties. You've got to have motive, means, opportunity, structure, plot. You've got to change viewpoint, which I do. You have to keep eternal tension high and you've got to come up with a credible denouement. And it's got to be intellectually stimulating. It's very difficult to do well."
Given these high standards, how does "Original Sin," her latest mystery, fare? I found it exasperating at times, slow-moving and given to meandering -- problems I have had with some of her other novels. But if "Original Sin" displays Ms. James' flaws, it also demonstrates her strengths. It's got several excellent characters, a multi-layered plot with some terrific twists toward the end, and a strong evocation of the locale -- London along the River Thames.
The book opens with a gruesome death. The body of Sonia Clements, a senior editor at the Peverell Press, a venerable and esteemed publishing house, has been found in an archive room of Innocent House, the gorgeous old townhouse that serves as the corporate headquarters. Clements had just been told by Gerard Etienne, the brusque, unsentimental new head of the press, that she was being let go at the age of 53. So, it appears, she committed suicide at Innocent House by mixing alcohol and drugs.
Her colleagues wonder if Clements' death was a protest against the heavy-handed maneuverings of Etienne, who had taken over the firm only a few months before and was already pushing for major changes. His father, now retired, had been a major partner in the firm, but the younger Etienne was not influenced by its legacy in London publishing. No matter that Peverell had been publishing since 1792 and that it had specialized in literary fiction. Peverell must be more cost-conscious and must publish more commercially oriented writers.
And, he says, it must sell Innocent House. At an acrimonious partners' meeting, Etienne tells them coldly: "Today a publisher makes money, and makes it efficiently, or goes under. Is that what you want? I don't propose to go under. I intend to make the Peverell Press profitable and after that to make it large."
This apparently is too much for someone at Peverell Press. Gerard Etienne is found soon afterward in the archives room. Not only is he dead by carbon monoxide poisoning -- someone had closed off the flue to the room's gas stove -- but, in a gruesome twist, someone had stuffed Peverell Press' mascot, a stuffed snake named Hissing Sid, into Etienne's mouth. And hadn't Etienne ordered another long-time employee just the day before to get rid of Sid?
Two deaths in a week. The first might have been a suicide, but the second? And thus Adam Dalgliesh is called into the case.
He finds several suspects. Gabriel Dauntsey, the genteel 76-year-old poetry editor, is of publishing's old school, where all parties concerned preferred to talk of literary accomplishment rather than bottom lines and high profits. Claudia Etienne, Gerard's sister, needs several hundred thousand pounds for a business investment, and she is her brother's beneficiary. James De Witt, a senior editor, resents Gerard's brutally frank manner. And Frances Peverell, another partner, represents the last of the founding family and was determined to keep the press operating the way it always had.
Though Dalgliesh directs the murder investigation, he isn't really a major player in this book. The characters of Kate Miskin and Daniel Aaron, his subordinates, get as much attention from Ms. James as does Commander Dalgliesh, and the interaction between the two younger detectives makes for an interesting subtext (falling in love, perhaps?).
I know that Ms. James can't accentuate Dalgliesh in every book, but his presence was sorely missed at times in "Original Sin"; he flitted in and out while other, less interesting characters commanded our attention. I also lament the very end, which was annoyingly Hollywoodish and not in keeping with Ms. James' strong imaginative sense. Still, though "Original Sin" may not be her best, it should keep her old fans and make a few new ones as well.
Mr. Warren's reviews appear Mondays in The Sun.
BOOK REVIEW
Title: "Original Sin"
Author: P. D. James
Publisher: Knopf
Length, price: 416 pages, $24