Shroud for a Nightingale

[sawyl]

According to LibraryThing it's taken me two months, but I've finally reached the end of my run through P.D. James' Adam Dalgliesh mysteries. So here's Shroud for a Nightingale, which has the distinction of rounding things off.

When a nursing student dies during a practical demonstration at a regional teaching hospital, the local police investigate, but the general consensus amongst the staff is that the death was accidental. But when a second student is found dead in her bed, the local police are only too happy to hand the case over to the Met, in the form of Superintendent Dalgliesh and Sergeant Masterson.

Unconvinced by the accident theory, Dalgliesh sets about questioning the hospital staff about both the deaths. He soon discovers that the nursing college is a hotbed of gossip and intrigue, a place where the staff and students seem to live on top of each other, a panopticon where everyone seems to know everyone elses business, secrets and routines — something that leaves him with no shortage of suspects.

Although I enjoyed the murder mystery, I particularly liked the sense that James gives of a vanished NHS: a hospital where matron rules with a rod of iron; where the hospital and college is overseen by a somewhat ineffective committee made up of local worthies; where the arrogant surgeon, one of the last great generalists, has the swagger of feudal lord right down to exercising his droit de seigneur over some of the students; where the students and staff live in the same accommodating and where there are concerns that the preference of one of the older students for a whiskey nightcap might be corrupting the morals of the younger ones.

I also very much liked the interaction between Dalgliesh and his subordinate, Masterson. It's made clear early on that neither likes each other and that where Dalgliesh is cerebral and cool and correct, Masterson is a impulsive, occasionally reckless, and, sometimes, ethically dubious. All of this is rather neatly summed up in the moment when the two men first meet the hospital committee and the matron for the first time: Dalgliesh immediately admires the matron's efficiency, writing off the rest of group as probably more of a hindrance; Masterson writes off the matron as a termagant and admires instead the efficiency of the group secretary.

All in all, a nice little note to end on.