Synopses & Reviews
Commander Adam Dalgliesh, P. D. Jamess formidable and fascinating detective, returns to find himself enmeshed in a terrifying story of passion and mystery -- and in love.
The Dupayne, a small private museum in London devoted to the interwar years 1919 -- 1939, is in turmoil. As its trustees argue over whether it should be closed, one of them is brutally and mysteriously murdered. Yet even as Commander Dalgliesh and his team proceed with their investigation, a second corpse is discovered. Someone in the Dupayne is prepared to kill and kill again. Still more sinister, the murders appear to echo the notorious crimes of the past featured in one of the museums galleries: the Murder Room.
The case is fraught with danger and complications from the outset, but for Dalgliesh the complications are unexpectedly profound. His new relationship with Emma Lavenham -- introduced in the last Dalgliesh novel, Death in Holy Orders -- is at a critical stage. Now, as he moves closer and closer to a solution to the puzzle, he finds himself driven further and further from commitment to the woman he loves.
The Murder Room is a powerful work of mystery and psychological intricacy from a master of the modern novel.
“You cant possibly know him.”
“I can know enough,” Emma said. “I cant know everything, no one can. Loving him doesnt give me the right to walk in and out of his mind as if it were my room at college. Hes the most private person Ive ever met. But I know the things about him that matter.”
But did she? Emma asked herself. Adam Dalgleish was intimate with those dark crevices of the human mind where horrors lurked which she couldnt begin to comprehend. Not even that appalling scene in the church at St. Anselms had shown her the worst that human beings could do to each other. She knew about those horrors from literature; he explored them daily in his work. Sometimes, waking from sleep in the early hours, the vision she had of him was of the dark face masked, the hands smooth and impersonal in the sleek latex gloves. What hadnt those hands touched? She rehearsed the questions she wondered if she would ever be able to ask. Why do you do it? Is it necessary to your poetry? Why did you choose this job? Or did it choose you?
-- from The Murder Room
From the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
P. D. James is the author of 17 previous books, most of which have been filmed for television. Before her retirement in 1979, she served in the forensics and criminal justice departments of Great Britains Home Office, and she has been a magistrate and a governor of the BBC. The recipient of many prizes and honours, she was created Baroness James of Holland Park in 1991. In 2000 she celebrated her 80th birthday and published her autobiography,
Time to Be in Earnest.
From the Hardcover edition.
Reading Group Guide
1. Book One is dedicated to introducing a wide array of characters, all of whom are possible suspects in the murder of Neville Dupayne. Judging from the presentation of characters here, who seems most likely to be the killer, and why?
2. Conrad Ackroyd tells Adam Dalgliesh, “You should read detective fiction. . . . Real-life murder today, apart from being commonplace and — forgive me — a little vulgar, is inhibiting of the imagination”. What are the implications of this joke for the novel to follow?
3. Dalglieshs first visit to the museum just a week before the first murder, we are told, is “one of lifes bizarre coincidences which . . . never fail to surprise”. What other coincidences does James introduce either to complicate or resolve the plot?
4. Like many of Jamess novels, The Murder Room demonstrates a detailed interest in architecture and in historic buildings. How do these settings focus the readers attention, and how do ideas about the city of London enrich the novel?
5. How is the plot revealed? How does James manipulate pacing to maximum effect? Which are the most suspenseful moments?
6. The Murder Room introduces several unhappy families — the Dupayne siblings, Tally Clutton and her daughter, Muriel Godbys family, Neville Dupayne and his daughter, among others. To what extent do these families represent the ills of contemporary society? Or are they simply examples of unsentimental realism?
7. Adam Dalgliesh is in love: “He felt as vulnerable as a boy in love for the first time. . . . Somehow he had to find the courage to risk that rejection, to accept the momentous presumption that Emma might love him”. In The Murder Room, the heros personal life impinges, to some degree, on his professional life. How is the love plot — Dalglieshs interest in Emma Lavenham and hers in him — incorporated into the mystery plot?
8. Tally Clutton clearly has a motive for murder. The reader knows that she didnt do it; however, since she arrived at the museum just in time to witness Neville Dupaynes death. How seriously is she considered a suspect by Dalgliesh and his team? If there is a single character at the novels moral center, is she the one? Is her near-death the climax of the plot?
9. How does the novels epigraph, from T. S. Eliots World War II poem “Burnt Norton,” resonate with the story? Does the epigraph suggest that Jamess larger theme is that of time — or history — and identity?
10. As the plot proceeds, is it possible to guess or deduce the killer? If so, at what point is it possible, and on what grounds?
11. Conrad Ackroyd is writing a series of articles arguing, “Murder, the unique crime, is a paradigm of its age”. Do the events of the story bear out Ackroyds theory? Or does the novel seem to prove instead that murder is the result of human emotions — like rage, resentment, or jealousy — that dont change over time?
12. P. D. James is unusually sensitive to the difficulties of finding love, particularly for women. In The Murder Room there are several unattached women, including Kate Miskin, Tally Clutton, Muriel Godby, and Caroline Dupayne. How accurately does the conversation between Emma and her friend Clara reflect these difficulties? How realistic is Jamess portrayal of the romantic struggles of her female protagonists?
13. In The Murder Room, it seems that the contemporary world, with its cell phones, traffic jams, and so on, is unsatisfactory and even dangerous. Early on, Dalgliesh muses that a lunch at the Ackroyds villa gives visitors “memories of a more leisurely age and . . . the temporary illusion that the dangerous world was as susceptible as was this domesticity to order, reason, comfort and peace”. In what ways does Adam Dalgliesh attempt to procure comfort and peace for himself? How does he react to the stress of his profession, and does he long for another kind of life?
14. Neville Dupayne wants to close the museum because he feels strongly that people are too obsessed with the past, and therefore they neglect the problems of the present. Is Muriel Godby obsessed with the past? How does the novels conclusion fit into Neville and Muriels worldviews?
15. Many moments in The Murder Room recall the prominence of war in characters memories. Emma remembers walking with her nurse to a war memorial, David Wilkins wants to own a painting of Passchendaele as a memorial to his grandfather, Tally remembers the bombing raid that orphaned her, and Dalgliesh remembers his familys gardeners stories about his service in World War I. What larger point is James making about the two world wars and their impact on English life?
16. Reflecting on the investigation, Kate Miskin thinks, “A single man had died and the squad would spend days, weeks, maybe longer deciding the how and why and who. This was murder, the unique crime. The cost of the investigation wouldnt be counted. Even if they made no arrest, the file wouldnt be closed. And yet at any minute terrorists might rain death on thousands”. Why is murder considered “the unique crime,” and why is the Murder Room the most visited exhibit in the museum? Is James suggesting that something about murder is particularly disturbing and provocative?