One of the minor hazards of being a bestselling crime novelist is the ubiquitous question, “And have you ever been personally involved with a real-life murder investigation?” a question occasionally asked with a look and tone which suggest that the Murder Squad of the Metropolitan Police might with advantage dig up my back garden.

'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. James's legions of fans and anyone who enjoys the pleasures of a masterfully wrought whodunit. Each of these stories is as playful as it is ingeniously plotted, the author's sly humor as evident as her hallmark narrative elegance and shrewd understanding of some of the most complex-not to say the most damning-aspects of human nature.

Dalgliesh's godfather implores him to reinvestigate a notorious murder that might ease the godfather's mind about an inheritance, but which will reveal a truth that even the supremely upstanding Adam Dalgliesh will keep to himself. A best-selling crime novelist describes the crime she herself was involved in fifty years earlier. A 'pedantic, respectable, censorious' clerk's secret taste for pornography is only the first reason he finds for not coming forward as a witness to a murder. Dalgliesh is drawn into a case that is 'pure Agatha Christie.'. Four previously uncollected stories from one of the great mystery writers of our time-swift, cunning murder mysteries (two of which feature the young Adam Dalgliesh) that together, to borrow the author's own word, add up to a delightful 'entertainment.'

The mistletoe murder pd james