The Mistletoe Murder

Starred review from August 8, 2016
The four previously uncollected mysteries in this collection show that James (1920–2014) was just as adept at the short form as she was at novel length; they efficiently introduce characters and create atmosphere, while posing fair challenges to readers eager to match wits with her. The title story presents a solution to a very cold case, provided by a mystery author who was in the house where an antiques dealer was bludgeoned to death. The author subtly conceals the signpost to the truth in “A Very Commonplace Murder,” the most complex selection, in which an alibi witness dithers over coming forward to clear an innocent man. In “The Twelve Clues of Christmas,” Adam Dalgleish, her series lead, comments, “I don’t think I’ll ever have another case like it. It was pure Agatha Christie.” Such a comparison isn’t gratuitous—the puzzles are sure to please Christie fans, while offering enough psychological depth to satisfy those who want to emotionally invest in the characters, even if they appear for just a few dozen pages. Agent: Carol Heaton, Greene & Heaton Ltd. (U.K.).

A slender collection that reprints four of the 20 mystery stories James left behind at her death in 2014.Murder comes for Christmas in two of these deceptively decorous tales. In the 1991 title story, a mystery author recalls the murder of an obnoxious guest during an anxious Christmas visit in 1940. The list of suspects is so short that it's hard to imagine how James will pull off any surprises, but many readers will gasp at the very last sentence. "The Twelve Clues of Christmas" shows newly minted Sgt. Adam Dalgliesh assisting and ultimately impressing his superior officer by producing no less than a dozen clues that lead to the murderer of the eminently dispensable paterfamilias whose suicide note is just another red herring. In "The Boxdale Inheritance," originally published as "Great Aunt Allie's Flypapers" in 1979, Chief Superintendent Dalgliesh's godfather asks him to assuage reservations about an inheritance he's due by assuring him that his great aunt Allie didn't take possession of the estate by feeding her much older husband arsenic 67 years ago. All three of these stories are as accomplished and literate as you'd expect, but the real prize is James' very first short story, "Moment of Power," originally published in 1968 and here retitled "A Very Commonplace Murder": not a detective story but a memorably creepy tale about a voyeur whose spying puts him in a position to exonerate a man accused of murder but who wonders whether he'll do anything of the sort. Unfortunately, Val McDermid's brief introduction includes no information about the stories' original publication and no hint of how these four stories came to be selected from among the author's 20. Still, no one would take exception to the concluding sentiment in McDermid's introduction: "These stories are a delicious gift to us at a time when we thought we would read no more of P.D. James's work." James' fans can only hope for several more such gifts. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

August 1, 2016
Four previously uncollected stories appear as a kind of after-dinner chocolate left on the pillows of the late mystery master's fans. As Val McDermid notes in her insightful foreword, James often employed the conventions of the cozy, but she was anything but cozy, wittily subverting those conventions to tell much darker tales. That is certainly true in these four spot-on stories, two of which star James' much-loved series hero, Adam Dalgliesh, at earlier stages of his career. Dalgliesh himself describes one of the plots, that of The Twelve Clues of Christmas, as being pure Agatha Christie, and so it is, except for the brutality of the murder itself. Perhaps the jewel in this very small but sparkling crown is the other Dalgliesh story, The Boxdale Inheritance, in which, as often happens in James' novels, Dalgliesh has little trouble identifying the murderer but acts out of concern for the individuals involved rather than from any rigid sense of justice. McDermid sums up the collection perfectly: These stories are a delicious gift to us at a time when we thought we would read no more of P. D. James' work. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

June 1, 2016

Four previously uncollected stories from the mystery great, two featuring the young Adam Dalgliesh? Keep reading. Sgt. Dalgliesh becomes involved in a case described as "pure Agatha Christie" and elsewhere reinvestigates an infamous murder to reassure his godfather about an inheritance. In addition, a stuffy clerk has reasons other than his weird taste in pornography to demur when asked to testify as witness to a murder, and a celebrated crime novelist describes her own involvement in a crime 50 years previously.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2016

This volume of four previously uncollected holiday-themed short stories from the late James (Cover Her Face) evokes mystery's Golden Age without quite being cozy. In fact, "A Very Commonplace Murder" is a bit creepy and distasteful as it tells of a filing clerk who surreptitiously enjoys a secret stash of pornography and observes a neighbor's trysts until they end in murder. Much more enjoyable are the two pieces featuring Adam Dalgliesh as he investigates homicides that occurred during Christmas. The title story is also entertaining as an elderly woman reminisces about an extraordinary Christmas in 1940, when her grandmother's houseguest ends up murdered. VERDICT These short tales feature James's clever plotting and witty narration with gratifying conclusions. A perfect stocking stuffer for James's many readers. [See Prepub Alert, 5/9/16.]

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.