Original Sin

Rating:
Summary: VARIATION ON A THEME
Review: In ORIGINAL SIN, Lady James has followed a formula similar to one that she has succesfully used in other novels. A person in a position of some power is contemplating a series of actions that will, most probably, cause damage to the careers and/or financial stability of several people either in his employ or in some other way dependant on him. To those so affected, these actions seem ruthless, and, in fact, are ruthless, but taken by this future murder victim because he feels that they make good business sense.

These planned actions seem to provide plausible motives for his murder, therefore several of his associates or underlings do have motives for his murder. In addition, most of these people seem to have had the opportunity.

During the course of the murder investigation there are other murders which may or may not be related to the original murder. (Want to guess if they are?)

The one variation from this theme from the two previous P. D. James mysteries I have reviewed, DEVICES AND DESIRES and A CERTAIN JUSTICE, is that this murder victim is male instead of female.

That's the formula, here are the specifics:

Our victim, Gerard Etienne, began making significant changes shortly after taking control of Peverell Press, an old and distinguished London Publisher that had fallen upon hard times. He planned to drop less profitable authors, to do away with some positions, and to sell the Venetian style building that had always symbolized all that Peverell Press had stood for. These plans gave any number of people reason to wish him dead and, sure enough, he did turn up dead, murdered in what was supposed to look like a suicide. Oh, did I mention that there had been a suicide at Peverell Press only a few weeks before Etienne's murder? No? Well there was, and in the same room where Etienne's body was found. Aha, the plot thickens!

Because of Etienne's status in London society, Adam Dalgliesh and his team of investigative specialists are called in to investigate the murder.

The bulk of the balance of the book is dedicated to the investigation and to the activities of various suspects and future victims of the murderer, as well as dealing with the personal devils inhabiting the minds and lives of Dalgliesh and his two key investigators, Kate Miskin and Daniel Aron.

Lady James writes in a leisurely but engaging manner, never rushing things but letting her scenes unfold at their own pace. This aspect of her writing seems to bother some reviewers who prefer less description and more action. I feel that it is exactly this aspect of her writing that sets her apart from the run-of-the-mill mystery writer. She may utilize a lot of descriptive prose, but she does it so well!

Rating:
Summary: My first James but not my last...
Review: Not since I saw "The Sixth Sense" a few years ago has the solution of a mystery so satisfied me as P.D. James's "Original Sin". It is one of those resolutions that makes you close the book with a satisfied snap, wondering and admiring a style that can lead you to so obvious a conclusion without giving it away too soon.

Themes of sin and justice weave in and out of the plot of this mystery, which is set at a London publishing house. The publisher has been murdered, gassed to death by a fireplace accident, with a stuffed snake wrapped around his neck. Suspicion centers around the publisher's various employees and a disgruntled midlist author whose contract has been cancelled. The publisher's death comes close on the heels on on on-site suicide of a longtime employee of the firm. By the novel's end, several more corpses make an appearance, maybe one more than is necessary.

Then there's the solution. I won't say anything about it except that it has been perfectly set up, and yet somehow the conclusion is just outside the grasp of the reader's mind, giving you one of those "Of course!" reactions.

Well worth the read... I can now see why James is considered the best in her field.

Rating:
Summary: More than just a mystery
Review: Original Sin is a powerfull novel and a surprising mystery, which deals with soul-searching moral problems, while solving intriguing murders. Though it is not her best work, P.D. James is still in a class of her own.

Rating:
Summary: Not just any mystery novel!
Review: Original Sin provided me with further confirmation (as if I needed it) of why P.D. James is among my favorite authors. This book is well plotted and written beautifully. The book's pace is leisurely without ever being slow -- and it is this pace which allows James to develop a "classic" mystery that at the same time serves as a character study and morality play. I have always enjoyed James' use of the character study (some of the finest chapters in this book involve the inner workings of the most peripheral characters). As with A Taste for Death, the last 100 pages are perhaps the most exciting, although as soon as I read the first chapter, the prose grabbed me and I knew I was in another James work.

Rating:
Summary: Another good one with Dalgleish
Review: Original Sin, PD James' 12th novel takes place within the modern publishing world.
There's a Dickensian charm to the setting, Peverell Press on the grounds of Innocent House, built to mimic a Venetial palace in 1792 by the firm's founder. One can almost feel the damp, smell the nearby Thames, and hear the click of heels down a foggy alleyway.
When a recently fired senior editor's murder is quickly followed by that of the new director who fired her, Dalgleish is called. Turns out there are plenty of motives and plenty of suspects to keep the investigators busy - and to keep PD James' loyal readers entertained.

Rating:
Summary: Standard James mystery is a cut above
Review: P.D. James is one of the best novelists alive, and she has gained a considerable reputation as a mystery writer. It's to the point that she was created Baroness James of Holland park a dozen years ago. She writes these Adam Dalgliesh mysteries, which are complex, textured stories that have multiple points of view, and involving, engaging characters that act in interesting ways, for intelligent motives.

In this volume, Dalgliesh is consulted about a series of practical jokes that have occurred at a venerable publishing house that's situated in a large mansion on the banks of the Thames River. He declines to get involved, and two weeks later there's a murder on the premises. The partners of the firm are from two extended families, though the leadership has recently passed from a pair of elderly men to a younger generation, dominated by the first victim, a vigorous man with a somewhat distasteful personality.

Dalgliesh steps into this mystery with his assistant Kate Miskin and a new one, Daniel Aaron, and he spends most of this book trying to disentangle the various threads of the crime and the things that are going on. The plot thickens, more murders occur, and the plot speeds up as things proceed.

James is somewhat like Christie, but different in one significant way that makes her a considerable improvement. Christie's novels were very plot-driven, with characters that didn't come to life much. The one exception was the main detective, and then you had to read several books to get into their character and get to know them. James by contrast writes a good plot---her books are almost as complex as Christie---but they are equally populated with characters that are memorable in and of themselves.

This is one of James' better books, and I only give it four stars as opposed to five because it gets a bit slow in the middle, and the murderer turns out to be a bit improbable. Other than that, the story is fine and I enjoyed it.

Rating:
Summary: Hollow Conclusion Destroys Otherwise Brilliant Work
Review: P.D. James often has difficulty in matching her brilliantly realized characters and settings with an equally brilliant plot. This has been particularly true of her most recent novels, which build a complex murder mystery only to implode with a conclusion that is either transparent or forced. Sadly, the conclusion of ORIGINAL SIN is both.

This is not to say that James doesn't spin a fine story along the way. Compulsively readable, her tale of murder and mayhem is beautifully rendered, and the novel's characters and settings rank as among the most memorable in the author's career. But simply stated, the ultimate satisfaction in reading a murder mystery is not in the author's skills of characterization or description; it is in the ability to suddenly pull the details of the plot to a fine and inescapable point. And after some five hundred pages of brilliant writing one has every reason to expect a brilliant solution.

Unfortunately, James simply isn't up to it. There is nothing in the final fifty pages of the novel that will surprise even the most casual mystery fan. P.D. James is on record as disliking such mystery novelists as Agatha Christie, complaining that unexpected plot twists are no compensation for lack of depth in character and setting. At the same time, however, James might pause to consider that brilliant characterizations and settings are no compensation for a truly hollow plot, particularly where murder mysteries are concerned.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Rating:
Summary: Her writing is LUGUBRIOUS
Review: PD James is getting very wordy, verbose and boring. I had to stop reading this book after she used the word "LUGUBRIOUS" three (yes! 3!) times in the first 80 or so pages. This was such an overkill, most people wont use "lugubrious" in their lifetimes. I gave up on this book and waited for the PBS mystery, which was worth the wait. Although I like many of her earlier mysteries and she really is a good writer, this book is not one of her best. Im beginning to think she gets paid by the word, (didnt that sort of go out with Dickens??) In any case, she once gave an interview on PBS stating that she didnt care much for the Agatha Christie type mysteries with a "body in a locked room" but thats exactly what she gives us here. The body, the locked room (publishing office) so she really isnt too far removed from Ms Christie's plots. She should apologize. Her new book "A Certain Justice" is much better written, even though she manages to describe a certain color as "greeny-blue" twice (yes twice) in different parts of the book. Maybe she is just running out of adjectives??

Rating:
Summary: Tedium at its best
Review: The best moments of this novel come in its opening lines. Unfortunately, it appears to stop dead after the first paragraph. James is much too concerned with flaunting her verbosity, and gives little regard to the time and effort the reader must expend in order to get through her book. Lengthy description abutts tediously expository dialogue, taunting the reader to skim through pages at a time, desperately searching for some thread of plot that hasn't been hopelessly knotted about some gargantuan block of sludgy narrative. James must learn the value of economy - there are plenty of other writers in the world, and we simply don't have time for all the words in Original Sin.

Rating:
Summary: Tedious
Review: The main character in this tedious book was the Thames. The people were flat, the plot tedious, the characterization meaningless, and the theme basically a repudiation of anti-semitism. Even the Chief Inspector, a character in other books whom I had come to care about, was almost non-existant. The book was apparently written to display the author's writing ability, not to tell a tale. Descriptions of rooms and dresses and weather and looks became tedious to the Nth degree. The book is more of a poorly written travel manual than a realistic mystery. Having read at least 70% of Ms. James' books, I found this one the final nail on the coffin for me. No more. Yes, I have been to London on extended holiday more than once and love the magnificence of the Old City, the New London, and the Thames. But this is not a book I can recommend. Don't waste your money. If you must read this one, borrow it from someone else or the public library. I am through with P. D. James. The writing here reached a peak in this book of being overinflated and full of herself.