Rating: 
Summary: predictable but readable
Review: I enjoy reading mysteries so that I can be surprised by the characters' actions or motives. This novel has very few surprises. Yet, because PD James is such an excellent writer, I enjoyed the novel because of the detective. His thoughts were interesting and surprising. I wish the action had been too.
Rating:
Summary: predictable but readable
Review: I enjoy reading mysteries so that I can be surprised by the characters' actions or motives. This novel has very few surprises. Yet, because PD James is such an excellent writer, I enjoyed the novel because of the detective. His thoughts were interesting and surprising. I wish the action had been too.
Rating: 
Summary: One of her best!
Review: I have read many of Ms. James' books, but this is one of the older ones I had trouble finding. I finally found it in a used book store and have not been disappointed. This is definitely one of her best. Her talent for conveying the dry British wit is displayed very well in this novel about a sort of hospice in Dorset. As one character says: "We all suffer from an progressive, incurable disease. We call it life."
Rating: 
Summary: Murder In An Unrelentingly Dark Mood
Review: P.D. James is reknowned for her ability to combine the psychological novel with the classic murder mystery--but now and then her emphasis on psychology so overshadows her plot that it becomes hard to describe the work as a murder mystery per se. Such is the case with THE BLACK TOWER, a profoundly bleak novel set in an isolated home for "the young disabled," a euphemistic term for victims of slowly progressing but ultimately fatal muscular disease.The story begins when Inspector Dalgliesh, himself recovering from both a serious illness and a crisis of confidence, is invited to Toynton Grange by the home's elderly chaplin; something is amiss, and the chaplin would welcome Dalgliesh's advice. But when Dalgliesh arrives, he finds his old friend has died a few days earlier. With little to go on except his own suspicion, Dalgliesh slowly, grudingly begins to investigate... and finds one suspicious death after another. The premise is a classic set up, but in this novel James places Dalgliesh more as an observer of the inevitable than as a detective, and when the solution arrives it does so more by intuition and assumption than by logical deduction. But if this element is weak, the overall novel is very strong: moody to the point of despair, and peopled with painfully pitiful characters, THE DARK TOWER is perhaps one of James' more memorable novels in terms of style alone. Flawed, yes; recommended nonetheless. But be forewarned: you may need prescription medication to escape the sense of depression the novel creates.
Rating:
Summary: Gothic!
Review: P.D. James pulls out all the gothic stops. I sometimes wondered whether she was parodying the gothic genre. The characters and dialogue are unrelievedly morbid, but with a certain amount of depth. The plot is sort of slow. This is the second gothic novel set in Dorset I have run across recently (the other is Ex Libris by Ross King). I shall never visit Dorset. I liked this novel enough to finish it, but I don't think I will read any more P. D. James. Her detective is too introspective, sensitive, and filled with self-doubt.
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing storyline-gothic atmosphere.
Review: PD James takes, as usual, a cast of characters and makes them come alive. She takes a depressing, very off-putting scenario, a nursiing center for chronically ill or disabled patients, and goes beneath the surface, to show who these people are and what their lives are life. Yes, the subject is scary(who wants to put themselves in these peoples shoes?) but James writes with such knowledge, feeling, and understanding of theese people, we come to discover how close to us in emotions, hate, rage, love, and pettiness, they really are. Apart from that, interesting story-line of how crime can be committed even in this gothic setting, issues of religion, and the always insightful and compassionate Dagliesh make this the most enjoyable, haunting story! Try all her books, you can't go wrong.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Crime Novel
Review: Reading this book you will never feel that it is going too slow or even too fast.The tempo is perfect and until the very end,the suspense and agony are being hold to maximum levels...
Rating:
Summary: P. D. James's creepiest yet
Review: The bodies of the murder victims keep piling up in this whodunit set in a nursing home on the coast of Dorset. The isolation lends to the aura of incipient terror that hovers over the scene, and more layers to the bottomless depths of Commander Adam Dalgliesh's character are revealed.
One of James's best.
Rating: 
Summary: A by-the-numbers psychological thriller.
Review: The fact that Adam Dalgliesh, the detective hero of James's "The Black Tower" never really SOLVES anything is indicative of the half-hearted nature of the rest of this novel. There are some interesting psychological portraits here if you can see your way through the hazy, credibility-stretching dialogue. But the thrill is lacking...we see every murder coming from miles away, and by the time the culprit finally makes himself clear, we are not only unsurprised, but fairly bored.
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