Summary and Reviews of The Murder Room by P.D. James

Media Reviews

The Globe and Mail - Martin Levin [A] superbly realized setting. … The plot unfolds at its Jamesian leisure; the rich, almost posh quality of its slow unveiling allows for sharp sketches of character and place…. [James] ought never to be confused with such practitioners of the murder-in-the-vicarage genre as Agatha Christie. She is subtler, more sophisticated, much more adept at creating character, and her social conservatism gives her a much darker view of human nature.

Waterstone's Books Quarterly (UK) The Murder Room is a brilliantly crafted novel, brimming with detail and rich in suspense; a further testament to James's skills in both.

Telegraph (UK) [T]he premise is delicious.

The Guardian (UK) James's eye for architecture and nature is rare in most genres of the novel now, and this skill for physical description -- along with her psychological acuity.

The Independent (UK) If crime fiction were classical music, P. D. James's books would be filed under Grand Opera. In a sense, James is the last of the great Golden Age crime writers. She has an instinctive grasp of narrative despite the leisurely prose, the shocks are beautifully handled. The plot purrs along like a well-designed and well-maintained engine. James writes with rare authority about the civil service, the police and the justice system. She also does an exceptionally good corpse -- she never cheapens the physical appearance of death, but describes it with both respect and clinical attention to detail.

Winnipeg Free Press James is a delight to read, a writer in love with the language as much as her characters and her detailed plots.… This is an exquisite book, perfect in its details.

Booklist - Bill Ott James, at 83, has mastered the trick of repeating herself in ever-fascinating new ways.

Kirkus Reviews Despite a plot less ineluctable than her best (Death in Holy Orders, 2001, etc.), James creates another teeming world in which murder is only the symptom of a more pervasive mortality.

Publishers Weekly ....the whodunit aspect falls short of James's best work. Hopefully, this is an isolated lapse for an author who excels at characterization and basic human psychology.

 Frances Fyfield This is a grand, gothic novel of gut-wrenching suspense, satisfying at all levels. . . . Here is a novel which goes beyond mere enjoyment.