Death in Holy Orders (Adam Dalgliesh Mystery Series #11) by P. D. James (2007-01-09)

Really enjoyed my first encounter with this author and look forward to reading more of her books. I'm glad I was reading this novel on a Kindle with a built in dictionary as I used this feature repeatedly, especially for the ecclesiastical terminology. I was however confounded by an instance of sympathetic treatment of pedastry in the church which seemed to be forgiven for the sake of a "guileless" perpetrator. While the perpetrator may have acted unintentionally, his effect on the victims cannot be forgiven for the feelings of guilt they may carry the rest of their lives. But after all this was a work of fiction, wasn't it?

The author went to great lengths to create an atmospheric background inclusive of detailed descriptions of the murder scenes. The characters were interesting but in a few instances somewhat stereotypical. However the British authors are masters of mystery novels and I could hardly put down my Kindle until I reached the conclusion.

The characters P. D. James invents are so completely defined and built that it's hard to believe these aren't people she knows. The mystery that unravels in this book kept me gripped from beginning to end. What can make people snap? Read on! (Or in my case, LISTEN on!)

I enjoyed the book immensly. I love trying to figure it out but this one harmed guessing to the end. P.D.James gives her charactors such believable personalities and her plots have so many twists and turns. That it leaves you? breathless.

I really love these books - I read them when they were first published - but re reading them now boy I can really see what I missed the first time round - they really do keep you wanting more when you have finished the book. Even though the books are of a similar plot you can [I can't anyway] figure out who the murderer is - love it - I really hope P.D. doesn't ever stop writing
Dottie55

This is another re-read for me. Fortunately, it's been a long time since I read it the first time so I really don't remember "whodunit". Half the fun of a mystery is trying to figure it out before getting to the end.

While Death In Holy Orders may lack the acidity and richness of A Certain Justice, it compensates immeasurably with the quality of transporting the reader to a fine far-flung locale. P.D. James has given us one of the best escapes from one's own troubles in exchange for murder and the charm and desolation of the religious community depicted in the novel.
Yes, I read the Black Tower and am perfectly happy that P.D. James has returned for a encore engagement among the holy orders. She does it well, so well, in fact, that I didn't want the novel to end any more than I wanted to see St. Anselm's face its shaky future. Only the best writers can make it possible for us to care about an institution and inhabitants that exist only on the pages of a book.
In reading the long list of reviews below, it is with the greatest of humility that I must confess that the murderer was a complete surprise to me. But then, they usually always are (even in the most unchallenging mystery novels). However, I don't read P.D. James for the quality of how confounding the mystery, how clever the murderer, or how relentlessly the top-notch team of Adam Dalgliesh, Kate, and Piers pursue their quarry. It is strictly for the quality of her writing and characterizations, qualities that seem to hold up best within the framework of detective fiction, that keeps me coming back each time, excited to start the novel and sad to leave it.
My first P.D. James novel was Innocent Blood, a non-AD masterpiece. Yet, it was years before I ever gave Adam Dalgliesh a chance. If the reader could start with any of P.D. James earlier works, it would be advisable if, for no other reason, than you will likely be a dyed-in-the-wool fan by the time you get to the later novels and have a far greater appreciation of the maturity of the major characters.

This is my second reading of "Death in Holy Orders" by P.D. James, and my favorite mystery of all time. The first aspect of this book that I love is the secluded, sinister atmosphere of the location where the story takes place. St. Anselm's theological college sits precariously on the cliffs off to itself on the coastline of East Anglia. There is nothing else around it, but a few small towns are within driving distance. St. Anselm's has been in existence since it was created by a wealthy woman in the 19th century, and has seen many wealthy ordinands go through to become Anglican priests in the High Church of England, which is the Anglo-Catholic Church.

Commander Adam Dalgliesh of New Scotland Yard is called to look into the death of one of the students at St. Anselm's who was found buried under hundreds of pounds of sand from a cliff that had fallen down and covered him. The father of the dead student is not satisfied with the ruling of the death and wants an investigation into it. It is here that Dalgliesh enters the picture with his sharp investigative mind and critical thinking. His powers of observation are excellent as are his listening skills. Having some time off helps Dalgliesh to visit St. Anselm's, but not to vacation and relax as he had hoped to get away from London. Dalgliesh had spent happy summers at St. Anselm's as a boy and returning held nostalgia for him.

The characters in the book are all very different and interesting. The priests who live and teach at the seminary are not all of one mind on a lot things, and motives for murder are many. As Dalgliesh goes about his interviews along with local police, more deaths occur, but no one has a strong idea for the motive at first. The priests and others who live at the college are afraid that a killer may be among them or that someone has entered from the outside and is killing off people at St. Anselm's. Priests and ordinands in long black cassocks scurry along the cloisters to safety in their rooms.

This is one of several mysteries featuring Commander Adam Dalglish that P.D.James has written. James's characters are fully developed over the course of the book and the reader gets to know a lot of details about them and also the setting where the story takes place. St. Anselm's is very distinct in my mind as to the layout of the property and the viciousness of the weather along the coast that is slowly eroding.

The solving of the cases in this book is not easy. It is written in such a way that one cannot guess early on who the perpetrator(s) might be. This is a multi-layered and fascinating story that is very well-written and is a bit unusual in its setting. It fascinated me the first time and the second time through was just as good.

Highly recommended for literary crime readers and for mystery readers.

In the earlier books featuring Scotland Yard Commander Adam Dalgliesh, he tends to be a loner, investigating a mystery by himself, either by preference or because circumstances force it on him. In the later books, Dalgliesh is very much the modern law enforcement executive, heading up an elite team of homicide investigative specialists and evidence technicians. This time, in one of the best of the series, he manages both methods, shifting from old style to new at the halfway point of the narrative.

Adam's father was a Norfolk rector (which is why he always seems to know so much about the British religious establishment, not to mention theology and doctrine) and when he was an adolescent, he spent several summers at St. Anselm's Theological College down in Suffolk, hanging out with the priests and indulging his taste for solitude along the sandy cliffs overlooking the sea. Now, thirty years after his last visit, he's making plans for his upcoming holiday when word comes that the wealthy father of a young ordinand (a post-university student preparing for the Anglican priesthood) wants him to look into the death of his son; was it an accident, as the corner ruled, or was it a suicide? Dalgliesh agrees to see what he can turn up and off he goes.

James follows her usual method of not only introducing the reader to the caste of characters but exploring their lives in considerable detail. (Some people love this narrative method but the impatient ones hate it.) There's the semi-retired nurse with the bad heart who looks after the college's linen (she soon dies, too), there's the vulnerable young handyman and his incestuous half-sister who looks out for him rather aggressively, there's the classical scholar who teaches Ancient Greek to the students as the price of pursuing his own studies, and there's the cook and her estate-manager husband. There are a handful of students (only a few of the usual twenty are in residence at the moment), including Raphael, an entrancingly beautiful young man who also happens to be the last descendant of the college's founder.

And, of course, there are the four priests, one of whom is Father Sebastian, the Warden of the college. The others include the retired ex-Warden whom Adam knows from years ago, a somewhat OCD librarian who sees nothing beyond his books, and a retiring and perpetually uneasy convicted pedophile who was hounded into a prison sentence by yet another priest who is now an archdeacon.

Ah, yes: Archdeacon Crampton. A real piece of work he is. The feelings of all the other players where he's concerned range from scorn to loathing to outright hatred. And he has some sketchy history of his own. It's no surprise when he's beaten to death in the college's church, and that where Adam stops being a visitor politely poling around and becomes the Police. The pool of suspects, as always in a story like this, is quite limited, but everyone has a motive or one sort or another for wanting to do in the archdeacon.

As Dalgliesh and his team do their interviews at the college itself, and go off to chase down evidence and possible witnesses that their questions have led to, the reader can begin to rank the possible suspects by likelihood of guilt, but one can expect to change one's mind several times. James is perfectly capable of allowing the most obvious candidate to turn out to be the Bad Guy. This one should keep you absorbed.

This is a quintessentially British mystery, old-fashioned, and reminiscent in plot style to Agatha Christie, with a murder and all the action taking place inside a closed community. One of the priests or ordinands within a small, remote, High Church seminary must have committed a murder, or two, or three. Commander Adam Dalgliesh, who spent several summers at St. Anselm's as a boy, returns to investigate the death of the young son of an extremely wealthy man, and in short order, additional deaths occur.

A Rogier van der Weyden altarpiece, a treasure trove of ecclesiastical silver, Pre-Raphaelite paintings, and other priceless art objects owned by the about-to-be-closed seminary, provide a possible financial motive for murder, while an incestuous relationship, a secret marriage, a paralyzing fear of the future, and even pedophilia by a much-loved priest are among the psychological motives.

Politeness and "civilized" behavior play a greater role here than they do in many, more "modern" mysteries. There is no graphic sex, no profanity, and no scenes of violence--just the effects of the violence. We see the priests and ordinands only within their circumscribed lives, and there are no scenes that suggest that any of them have any sense of humor or any real need for fun. Although James conveys enough psychological astuteness that her characters do not feel flat, there are at least eight or ten who could have committed the murder and for whom very substantial background information is given.

The reader must follow all of them, along with an equally large number of red herrings, for four hundred pages before the plot is resolved, somewhat anticlimactically. That, combined with maddeningly detailed, physical descriptions of the rooms of the seminary, made this a four-star experience for me, rather than five-star. Mary Whipple

This is a quintessentially British mystery, old-fashioned, and reminiscent in plot style to Agatha Christie, with a murder and all the action taking place inside a closed community. One of the priests or ordinands within a small, remote, High Church seminary must have committed a murder, or two, or three. Commander Adam Dalgliesh, who spent several summers at St. Anselm's as a boy, returns to investigate the death of the young son of an extremely wealthy man, and in short order, additional deaths occur.

A Rogier van der Weyden altarpiece, a treasure trove of ecclesiastical silver, Pre-Raphaelite paintings, and other priceless art objects owned by the about-to-be-closed seminary, provide a possible financial motive for murder, while an incestuous relationship, a secret marriage, a paralyzing fear of the future, and even pedophilia by a much-loved priest are among the psychological motives.

Politeness and "civilized" behavior play a greater role here than they do in many, more "modern" mysteries. There is no graphic sex, no profanity, and no scenes of violence--just the effects of the violence. We see the priests and ordinands only within their circumscribed lives, and there are no scenes that suggest that any of them have any sense of humor or any real need for fun. Although James conveys enough psychological astuteness that her characters do not feel flat, there are at least eight or ten who could have committed the murder and for whom very substantial background information is given.

The reader must follow all of them, along with an equally large number of red herrings, for four hundred pages before the plot is resolved, somewhat anticlimactically. That, combined with maddeningly detailed, physical descriptions of the rooms of the seminary, made this a four-star experience for me, rather than five-star. Mary Whipple

Whether she's the reigning "Queen of Crime" or not (and she probably doesn't care!),
P.D. James is unbeatable with the police procedural. And her latest, "Death in Holy
Orders" is, once again, James par excellence. What scope, what depth, what sheer writing
talent when it comes to a gripping, mesmerizing, no-holds-barred whodunit! James
brushes aside her critics and continues writing in the way she knows best, unassuming and
literate, psychological and breath-taking!
And her main man, Adam Dalgleish is back, along with his trusted assistants, Kate Miskin
and Piers Tarrant, as the superintendent enters ecclesiastical waters in this episode. A
theological student has been found dead on the East Anglian shore, a tragedy ruled
"accidental." However, pressed by the student's father, Dalgleish re-examines the ruling
and James is off to the races in typical (read that "exciting") style. Known as the "dark
poet of Scotland Yard," Dalgleish finds himself, once again, in familiar territory, as he
recalls having visited the College of St. Anselm in his youth; however, momentary nostalgia
aside, he finds more than he could possibly have anticipated. Of course, there is soon
another death and Dalgleish's own "little gray cells" begin working overtime! Indeed, this
may be the more horrifying case he's encountered, as James explores evil as she's never
done before.
Once again, James takes some time to present Dalgleish, the man, as well. Each of the
books in his series provides more and more insight into this incredibly complex policeman.
Dalgleish fans will welcome this, of course. "Death in Holy Orders" is yet another of those
books that find themselves almost impossible to put down. James and Dalgleish--what a
combination, what a read!

This is a quintessentially British mystery, old-fashioned, and reminiscent in plot to Agatha Christie, with a murder and all the action taking place inside a closed community. One of the priests or ordinands within a small, remote, High Church seminary must have committed a murder, or two, or three.

Commander Adam Dalgliesh, who spent several summers at St. Anselm's as a boy, returns to investigate the death of the young son of an extremely wealthy man, and in short order, additional deaths occur. A Rogier van der Weyden altarpiece, a treasure trove of ecclesiastical silver, Pre-Raphaelite paintings, and other priceless art objects owned by the about-to-be-closed seminary, provide a possible financial motive for murder, while an incestuous relationship, a secret marriage, a paralyzing fear of the future, and even pedophilia by a much-loved priest are among the psychological motives.

Politeness and "civilized" behavior play a greater role here than they do in many, more "modern" mysteries. There is no graphic sex, no profanity, and no scenes of violence--just the effects of the violence. We see the priests and ordinands only within their circumscribed lives, and there are no scenes that suggest that any of them have any sense of humor or any real need for fun.

Although James conveys enough psychological astuteness that her characters do not feel flat, there are at least eight or ten who could have committed the murder and for whom very substantial background information is given. The reader must follow all of them, along with an equally large number of red herrings, for four hundred pages before the plot is resolved, somewhat anticlimactically. That, combined with maddeningly detailed, physical descriptions of the rooms of the seminary, made this a four-star experience for me, rather than five-star. Mary Whipple

This is part of the series of mysteries featuring Scotland Yard's Commander Adam Dalgleish. Ronald Treeves, a young man studying for the priesthood at St. Anselm's Theological College, died under rather strange circumstance-a cliff of sand long the beach fell on him. Although the inquest rules the death accidental, his rich and powerful father is not satisfied. He insists that Scotland Yard look into the matter, and Commander Dalgleish, who is familiar with St. Anselm's, volunteers for the job. Dalgleish arrives at the college to find that several other visitors there, including Archdeacon Matthew Crampton, a trustee of the college, who, being roundly disliked by everyone, immediately becomes the character in the story most likely to be murdered.
A violent storm erupts in the night and doers of dark deeds are afoot.
The story holds one's attention, with scandals, interlocking clues, and bodies piling up like cordwood. No surprise ending, though. Police procedure and forensic evidence lead doggedly to the truth.
There is quite a cast of characters in the book , and James develops many of them well enough for us to get a sense of them as people. Not least among them is Emma Lavenham, a young Cambridge scholar who is at the college to teach a seminar on metaphysical poets. Of course we all know that Dalgleish is a poet. By book's end, we see that Dalgleish's solitary personal life is about to change.
Although her writing is somewhat melodramatic, P.D. James knows how to tell a ripping good story.

Whoever loves artful writing and whodunit entwined will love P. D. James' latest Adam Dalgleish mystery. Wonderfully set on the East Anglian coast midst ever-changing and threatening nature where an holy order of priests and would-be priests/ordinands reside, this mystery unwinds around the suspicious accidental death of a rich man's son. And once the on leave Dalgleish joins the inquiry, murders just keep coming.
There is romantic, even incestuous, human fraility in this four part novel. There are jealousy, animosity, cross purposes, greed, deceit, anger, depression and revenge at work. Each character is skillfully drawn, especially those that are linked with Dalgleish's past and present, and the setting exacts added suspense to a seemingly pastoral setting.
The decline of the Arbuthnot estate's endowed theological seminary is central to the plot. One can guess that each character is linked to that demise in some fashion. And just as in a good Agatha Christie novel, the characters are tied to one another openly and in disguise, and await the skillful unraveling of the poetic and sensitive intellect of Dalgleish and his cohorts Kate, Piers, and Robbins.
Such a pleasure to relax into a well-written tome! James makes Dalgleish a friend of the reader, a character come to life, someone we know and willingly follow into a mystery that needs solving.

It has been some considerable time since P. D. James has written an Adam Dalgleish mystery. The last, I believe, was "A Certain Justice." For some reason I had trouble with that novel. I bought "Death in Holy Orders" when it came out, but let it languish on my shelf for a while before diving in.
When I finally started reading the new novel I realized that I had entirely forgotten what an accomplished writer James really is. Her ability to create vivid and believable plots, settings and characters really is remarkable. Capable of extreme power when she needs to call upon it, James is not a lighthearted writer. But neither is her style oppressive or exhausting.
Commander Adam Dalgleish, her detective, is a character painted with considerable sensitivity. He is an unusual character for a policeman, sober and philosophical. His avocation is writing poetry, at which he has enjoyed considerable success. The death of his wife at an early age, and the nature of his job gives him with a poignancy which perfectly balances the tragic nature of the crimes he investigates.
When a theological student at St. Anselm's College is found buried under a sandfall, his father is not satisfied with the finding of accidental death by the Suffolk police. Adam Dalgleish is asked to look into the crime. He had spent several summers at St. Anselm's and so was familiar with the setting. Although unable to form any conclusion about the boy's death, Dalgleish is struck by many coincidental events and is not totally satisfied. Margaret Munroe, a nurse and attendant at the school, dies of apparently natural causes, but the death prevents Dalgleish from following up some important evidence.
St Anselm's is facing closure as the result of the Episcopalian Church's need to consolidate its theological training. The holdings of the school are quite valuable, and an unusual will makes the disposition of these artifacts is a bone of great contention between Archdeacon Crampton, who represents the diocese and Father Sebastion, who heads St. Anselm's. There are few in the school who have reason to like the Archdeacon. He sent one of the clergymen to prison for sexual misconduct on trumped up charges. A local policeman in retreat at the school suffered disciplinary action when he investigated Crampton's complicity in the death of his first wife. Several students were vehemently antagonistic to the Archdeacon's behavior.
When Archdeacon Crampton is found horribly murdered before the altar of St Anselm's church it comes as no surprise. Dalgleish takes over the case with his regular squad, and quickly determines that the crime must have been committed by one of the school's residents. Sensing a subtle mind at work, the commander is faced with a complex investigation full of contradictory clues and intuitions.
For all the time that P. D. James lovingly puts into the details of setting and characterization, "Death in Holy Orders" is hardly slow paced. I found myself quickly drawn in and it was a great struggle to put down the book the few times I was able. Dalgleish's introspection keeps the plot from becoming shallow, providing a satisfactory experience at many levels. The will be a serious contender for mystery story of the year.

Detective fiction is not a genre that I read very much. However, the publicity that this book received and the fact that I have been to theological college myself made me decide to give it a shot. James has obviously researched her material well. Questions of theology are handled relatively astutely. While she writes in a note at the beginning that the characters are not based on anyone, she obviously has a good knowledge of human character and applies this in an interesting way to those in her book. Having said that, it is a bit sad that she feels the need to say that she doesn't want to discourage candidates for ministry training or visitors to theological colleges. If such people really cannot tell the difference between real life and detective fiction then something seems wrong with our world.
It was only relatively late in the story that I figured out who the murderer would be, which is a sign that the writer has not made things so obvious that the book is not worth reading (although it could just have been my unfamiliarity with this genre). At the same time, once the murderer was revealed there were clues that one could look back on, so it didn't feel that James has just picked an unlikely candidate in order to keep it a mystery. This was a fun read but not, ultimately, one that would make me want to read many similar books. For it's explorations of character and the exploration of an unusual setting I would recommend it as something worth reading.

The average mystery writer, however durable or prolific, would probably be all tuckered out by her eightieth birthday...fortunately, P.D. James is not your average mystery writer. Proving that her literary instincts are as sharp as ever, Britain's Queen of Crime has turned out what may be her most genuinely satisfying effort to date. For all its flaws (and yes, there are some), "Death in Holy Orders" is a must-read. If you are an Adam Dalgliesh fan--or indeed, if James' books have ever given you the slightest pleasure--you cannot afford to miss this novel.
Commander Dalgliesh is summoned to St. Anselm's, a small theological college on the East Anglian coast, to investigate the death of a young ordinand which may or may not be murder. But all doubts fade when a much-loathed archdeacon is found horribly bludgeoned in the church one morning, and Dalgliesh, flanked once again by Inspectors Kate Miskin and Piers Tarrant, once more finds himself grappling with a ruthless killer.
As in "A Certain Justice," which brought murder into the heart of a legal community, the presence of evil within these sacred halls provides James with a deliciously twisted moral premise--not to mention the largest and shiftiest cast she's ever dealt with. With her typically skillful blend of wit, intuition and understanding, James lays bare the frailties and complexities of every character, from a priest convicted of pedophilia to an incestuous young hired hand. Make no mistake, "Death in Holy Orders" is a hell of an absorbing entertainment--you'd be hard-pressed to find a novel laced with more voyeuristic pleasures--but James' prose is so soulful, her psychological insights so piercing, that the line between detective novel and mainstream fiction almost ceases to exist.
This only gets to be a problem, however, when James becomes too aware of her status as champion of the "serious" mystery. Her scorn for Agatha Christie is well-known, and more than once in "Death in Holy Orders" she uses her characters as mouthpieces for this superior attitude. Certainly, Christie was a literary lightweight, but she was also the world's greatest mystery writer, damnit, and James' catty remarks in this regard only undermine the credibility of the world she has so carefully crafted for us--especially given that the extraordinarily intricate plot, though plausible and convincing, does smack a bit of Christie-esque ingenuity, particularly where clues and red herrings are concerned. It's a shame then that James, refusing to provide the sudden, shocking solution so favored by the genre, settles instead for a rather anticlimactic revelation of identity.
These are only minor flaws in a novel so rich, so wise, and so superbly riveting that you feel positively grateful after finishing it. It seems to me that P.D. James, after the rather bloated excess of "Devices and Desires" and "Original Sin," is experiencing a late creative
renaissance--"A Certain Justice" and "Death in Holy Orders" are probably the most mature works she has yet produced. But while the former was a masterpiece of flawless craftsmanship, it was also bleak and slightly remote; "Death in Holy Orders" is far more willing to take risks, and it's ultimately got more of a heart.
That heart, of course, is Adam Dalgliesh. James clearly has her fans in mind; after years of neglecting her introspective, poetry-writing sleuth, she's finally put him front and center where he belongs. She spends a great deal of time inside Dalgliesh's head--a fascinating place to be--and not only provides a wonderful childhood flashback, but also hints at a possible romance in his future. At long last, that "splinter of ice" in Dalgliesh's heart is starting to melt. Whether we will be allowed to see the aftermath remains a mystery, but if P.D. James' vitality is any indication, this series hasn't breathed its last--not by a long shot.

I really enjoyed this book. It did have more descriptive passages than I'm used to in American novels, but I skimmed them and continued on. I've loved Adam Dalghliesh since I saw him on Masterpiece Mystery (or maybe BBC America?). I will read more of this series.

Her latest three Dalgliesh novels have been the best of the entire series! "Original Sin" "A Certain Justice" and now this, have all three been fantastic and incredibly enjoyable. In fact, Original Sin is one of my favourite mystery novels of all time.
This one is a very very strong book....her writing is first class, and she is probably the best lady writer working within the genre today, in any country, not just the UK. Dalgliesh is a likeable, well drawn character, and on this book we see some enticing personal glimpses into his past, and we are even shown a hint of romance in the air. I am eagerly awaiting the next book to find out where she goes with this aspect.
The plot is great. A classic mystery and hauntingly realistic. She writes subtly, especially about her setting. She doe snot force the landscape down the readers throat as some writers do, instead she lets it linger in the background, weaving its way into your imagination, so that whenever you picture anything from the book, the setting is right there. Its omnipresent, but not right at the forefront. (As is right and proper.)
Great characters and a great mystery, this is P.D. James writing at the top of her form, where almost nothing is beyond her.

P. D. James is, without doubt, the greatest living mystery writer today. Bar none. "Death In Holy Orders", her latest Adam Dalglish offering, merely cements this fact - as if it needed it.
The body of a young ordinand is discovered, smothered by a collapse of sand, on the beach near St. Anselem's, a theological college on the lonely shores of East Anglia. Ironically, St. Anselem's was also a particularly important place in Dalglish's boyhood and, when he is called to investigate this shocking murder, his journey there represents in microcosm the disparity between the new England and the old, the former way of living butting heads with the new, a theme carried delicately throughout the book in many ways, including the characters and how they live and think.
Subsequently, two more murders are committed - the last a most gruesome, shocking dispatching taking place in the chapel of all places - and Dalglish calls in Kate Miskin and company to assist him in finding the perpetrator.
A new twist added here is the subtle romantic situation occurring in the background between Dalglish and one of the people staying at the college during the murders. The ending is more satisfying than "A Certain Justice" and I liked the fact that Ms. James alludes to Dalglish's feelings about the end of the matter written about in "Justice". He feels he failed, somehow, and these feelings make finding this latest killer an even more urgent matter - not only to stop him killing again, but to reassure Dalglish that justice does, indeed, come around more often than not.
A wonderful novel from a terrific writer.