The Private Patient

I woke up this morning determined to read the last 50 or so pages of The Private Patient by P.D. James. It has been my nighttime read for about a week and I turned out the light last night just as the case was coming to an end. It was either that or try to stay awake another hour or so to finish it.

This mystery is the latest and perhaps last of the Adam Dalgleish series. It was published in 2008 and since Ms. James is now 92, I wonder if there will be another with detective and poet Commander Dalgleish.

Basically the story is of the murder of an investigative reporter who has gone to a private clinic/manor house outside of London to have a facial scar removed by a well-known and successful plastic surgeon. The wound was inflicted some 40 years ago by the woman's father when she was a child. He was a drunkard and slashed her cheek with a broken bottle.  She tells the surgeon that "she has no use for the scar any longer." (Neither he nor I could ever figure out what she meant.)

Ms. James, as usual, delves quite deeply into her characters and there are plenty of them here to deal with. And the rooms. Ms. James loves to describe rooms - bedrooms, libraries, kitchens. I used to hurry through those details - let's get on with the plot, thank you very much - but have taken to slowing down and appreciating the way she uses her imagination to create the scene for the reader. 

I am not sure the ending - there are really two - is very clear, but getting there was surely entertaining. And, with not as much philosophizing as in the recently read The Murder Room.

So long, Adam Dalgleish.

Three new/old books

Jean Hersey
The Shape of a Year

Lucky me! I scored three new/old books today and that always makes for a good day.

Read This! Handpicked Favorites from Indie Bookstores:

This little red book is, according to its back cover, "a reference for those who can never have enough to read. It offers booklovers an insider's guide to the treasured titles that have flown under the radar, but off of bookstore shelves."

In it 25 independent booksellers offer their picks of 50 books they love and love to pass on to readers. Michael Bogg's, co-owner of Carmichael's Bookstore in my hometown, has a list included here. Of his 50, I have read eight. I guess I have a lot of catching up to do. 

I hope to interview Mr. Boggs for Belle, Book, and Candle and will keep you posted on that project.

The Private Patient by P.D. James:
I picked this paperback copy off the Books for Sale table at the library. I just finished James's The Murder Room published in 2003. This is her latest (and last?) Adam Dalgliesh mystery published in 2008. 

The Shape of a Year by Jean Hersey:
This is a lovely prize also found on the library's sale table. According to the flyleaf, "it is a month-by-month chronicle of events in one woman's life, in her Connecticut house set in a meadow bounded by a rushing brook and hills covered with maples and hemlocks." 

It was published in 1967 and has chapter illustrations by John Pimlott.

I do so love a journal written by a woman that features the turning of the seasons and comments on daily life. It is in excellent condition for a hardcover book that is 45 years old. Not a tear or a bent page.

Here is her opening entry for November:

November is chill, frosted mornings with a silver sun rising behind the trees, red cardinals at the feeders, and squirrels running scallops along the tops of the gray stone walls.

Ahhh. A treasure indeed.