A Mind to Murder

[sawyl]

Next in my on-going PD James sequence is A Mind to Murder, the second of the Dalgliesh novels. Which, for the record, I very much enjoyed.

When the administrative officer of the Steen Psychiatric Clinic is found stabbed in the basement archives on a chaotic Friday night, Adam Dalgliesh finds himself conveniently placed to investigate — he is at a party at his publishers, Hearne and Illingworth, just across the square from the clinic. Investigating Dalgliesh and Martin gradually start to uncover the truth about the victim: that she was insensitive, target driven in a way that tended to rub the medical staff up the wrong way; that she was worried that something improper was going on at the clinic and had requested a meeting with the group secretary to discuss it; and that there were others interested in her job and her money.

There's a lot to like about A Mind to Murder. Dalgliesh is more involved and more central to the story than in Cover Her Face and his personality comes across as far more developed, his characteristic aloofness brought out in an early encounter with Deborah Riscoe, whom he clearly finds attractive but who he is reluctant to pursue for fear of sacrificing his independence. The other characters, particularly the psychiatrists, are also very clearly drawn. Dr Stiner, analytical and dismissive of his more eclectic colleagues; Dr Baguley, morose, keen on ECT and in love with one of his colleagues; and Dr Etherege, the directory of the Steen, a television intellectual with a set of mannerisms designed to convey his contemplative brilliance to a watching audience.

And as if that wasn't enough, the book opens with a very funny scene setter in which Paul Steiner complains at length about the noise, about his colleagues about Miss Bolam, even the patient he is currently treating:

[Steiner] did not recall the session in question but as unconcerned. With Mr Burge pretty basic stuff was invariably near the surface and could be trusted to emerge. An unaccountable peace fell. Dr Steiner doodled on his notepad, regarding the doodle with interest and concern, looked at it again with pad held upside down and became for a moment more preoccupied with his own subconscious than that of his patient.

At which point, the calm is shattered by a scream that heralds the discovery of the body...