Book review: PD James -- Unnatural Causes

Third book in the Adam Dalgliesh series. Dalgliesh needs a break, partly to recover from his last case and partly to think over his relationship with Deborah Riscoe. As is his habit, he goes to stay for a few days with his Aunt Jane, who lives in a small, remote coastal settlement populated mostly by writers. Naturally, he finds murder even in Monksmere.

In this case, Dalgliesh is not only not the investigating officer, but not officially involved in the case other than as a witness and relative/aquaintance of the suspects. But as someone with inside knowledge of the community and a direct connection, he can't but help but be involved with the local police as they attempt to solve the case.

It's all too clear that the only plausible suspects are the inhabitants of Monksmere, but that doesn't stop them trying to find some way to first deny that there has been a murder, and then that it is one of their number who was responsible. James carefully shows the differing and often eccentric personalities, the ways in which they manage to live in a sometimes uneasy tolerance of each other in a very small community, and the effect the murder has upon those relationships. With the victim being a writer of detective stories, and all the suspects being writers, there are multiple levels of meta going on.

I found the book an enjoyable read, though flawed in places. But it's far from her best work, and even if you don't like this one it would be worth trying one of the later books. It's also worth bearing in mind that the book was written in 1967, and social changes since then could make the book feel dated and implausible if you're not aware of this.

Unnatural Causes at Amazon UK
at Play
Unnatural Causes (Adam Dagliesh Mystery Series #3) at Amazon US
at Powell's
LibraryThing entry
Also available in audiobook format at audio.com

Best pen review ever

I occasionally read pen porn, i.e. geeky reviews of pens I know in my heart I'm never going to buy, but I can still fantasise about. Having lost a bookmark for a blog, I was trying to Google it, and found a link to the best pen review ever. The Amazon reviewers have been having a little... fun... with the "Bic Crystal Ballpoint Pen, Medium Point, Black" review section. :-)

oh, *damn*

One of the things I wanted to do this summer was go and visit some of my old colleagues where I worked before I moved to the US. I've seen some of them on trips back, but I haven't seen any of them since I moved back permanently to the UK. In particular, I wanted to see one close friend, not least because he had been hit with a degenerative disease and he's one of the ones I hadn't been able to catch up with on previous visits.

I've just received a card from his wife to let me know that it's finally beaten him. :-(

For the to buy list

Yesterday I was thinking that it's time to buy a good hopper-fed scanner, with the aim of digitising a bunch of stuff so that I can dispose of the hard copies. autopope was singing the praises of one a while back, but I couldn't remember what model. Since he's just mentioned it again, I wish to make a note where I can find it. The Fujitsu ScanSnap is not cheap, but may well be worth it and is at least a deductible business expense. (No, that does not make it free. It just means I can knock some percentage of its price of my tax bill.)