He happens upon an apparent suicide and notices twelve clues that help him solve whether the death was indeed a suicide. Did the “innocent woman” kill her husband? If she did, how did she do it, if not, who did? The last tale also concerns Dalgliesh, when he was just appointed to be a sergeant. She is dead now, except for one survivor of the 60-year-old case. She was a couple of years younger than his grandchild. In the third tale, a clergyman asks Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh to investigate a 60-year-old case where a woman was found innocent at a trial for killing her husband. He knows the man never entered the house but tells us he is afraid to testify because he would be embarrassed if he did so because of the pornography. He saw the man come to the house one evening but the woman did not answer his ring.
He could see a window in an adjacent house and watched a young man visit an older woman every Friday. In the second tale, a man tells readers how he snuck into a house to read pornography that he knew was there. The question in the tale is who killed an elderly grandmother and why, and how was it done. The first tale, for example tells what she says is a true story, something she experienced when she was only 18 years old. Each is artistically misleading, causing readers to think that something is happening, and we are surprised to discover that the solution to the crime is something we did not expect. This 2016 collection of short stories contains stories that were written years ago. James the Queen of Crime, meaning she is one of the best, if not the best crime writer. For those that followed Dagliesh, his role in the third entry – “The Boxdale Inheritance” – could really have been most anybody but he was notably amusing and clever in the fourth – “The Twelve Clues of Christmas”.Īnd so as Yuletide approaches, what a lovely holiday visit with James! The remaining tales pale a little compared to that, but are still plenty of fun. We particularly enjoyed the first entry – “The Mistletoe Murder” – for its terrific ending that we daresay nary a reader will suspect.
We found the brief introduction by Val McDermid a little dry but enjoyed the author’s own thoughts about writing short stories in an entertaining preface – one remarkably similar to a little essay on the same topic we had previously read by Jeffery Deaver, quite good at this difficult medium himself. In this charming little 5x8 hardback, three of the tales run some 40 pages, with the final one a tad shorter. But herein the estate has collected four of her short stories apparently previously published in various periodicals, three of which feature a holiday motif while two of the four showcase her leading man Adam Dalgliesh. We knew PD James, the grand dame of British crime thriller literature, had passed away a couple of years ago.
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