The reliance on being able to escape is dependent on the tides, the visibility through the continual threat of mist and fog and of course not forgetting the main feature the lighthouse which despite being on the coast, holds centre stage within the book itself. So onto the setting, an island complete with all the features of island life. The characters are predictably an unusual bunch and most of them quite frankly not the kind you would invite around for dinner, but they were distinct with some depth and of course their own motivation for wanting the victim dead, but being unlikable doesn’t mean they are killers. James’s novels and this one was no exception, the plotting was brilliant with many of the limited number of suspects having a reason to what the victim bumped off, it wasn’t at all easy to detect who the perpetrator was with my thoughts changing as the story progressed. This way you can concentrate on helping the police from the side-lines without any emotional involvement wasted. I say the best tradition because it is far easier to read about murder when there is a part of you that can’t help feel that it isn’t any great loss to the world. In the best traditions of this kind of murder mystery is that the dead person wasn’t exactly a likeable person. They all drop there current work and hurry to the island.

Even better this island is used as a retreat for under-pressure men and women, only those of the better classes need apply of course.Īt the time of the unexplained death on the island was preparing for some very important guests and so the murder needs the brightest and the best to investigate, so that would be Commander Adam Dalgliesh, DI Kate Miskin and Sergeant Francis Benton-Smith.

James has therefore sensibly chosen the secluded island of Combe off the coast of Cornwall. One of the only reasonable places for this set-up has to be an island which no-one can get to, and of course no-one can leave. This is quite hard to make believable even in times gone by, but in more modern settings it has to be a challenge to have a cast iron setting. One of my favourite tropes in mystery novels one where there is a limited number of suspects.

The lighthouse book pd james