How did an upper-crust Minister come to lie, slit throat to slit throat, next to a neighborhood derelict of the lowest order? Challenged with the investigation of a crime that appears to have endless motives, Dalgliesh explores the sinister web spun around a half-burnt diary and a violet-eyed widow who is pregnant and full of malice—all the while hoping to fill the gap of logic that joined these two disparate men in bright red death...

When Commander Adam Dalgliesh visits Larksoken, a remote headland community on the Norfolk coast in the shadow of a nuclear power station, he expects to be engaged only in the sad business of tying up his aunt's estate. But the peace of Larksoken is illusory. A serial killer known as the Whistler is terrorising the neighbourhood and Dalgliesh is drawn into the lives of the headlanders when it quickly becomes apparent that the Whistler isn't the only...

On the bleak coast of East Anglia, atop a sweep of low cliffs, stands the small theological college of St. Anselm's. On the shore not far away, smothered beneath a fall of sand, lies the body of one of the school's young ordinands. He is the son of Sir Alred Treves, a hugely successful businessman who is accustomed to getting what he wants--and in this case what he wants is for Commander Adam Dalgliesh to investigate his son's death. Although there...

Four Christmas short stories, two featuring poet-detective Adam Dalgliesh, that deal with some of the most unsettling aspects of human nature. Previously published in newspapers and magazines, they are collected here for the first time.

A string of mysterious deaths catapults Dalgliesh into a maze of mystery, blackmail and murder.

P. D. James is “the greatest living mystery writer.” –People
Headstrong and beautiful, the young housemaid Sally Jupp is put rudely in her place, strangled in her bed behind a bolted door. Coolly brilliant policeman Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard must find her killer among a houseful of suspects, most of whom had very good reason to wish her ill.
Cover Her Face is P. D. James’s electric debut novel, an ingeniously...

Commander Dalgliesh investigates a murder at a hospital nursing school, uncovering its secret world of sex and ambition.