In this example of mystery and detective fiction, the author introduces her recurring investigator, Inspector Adam Dalgleish of Scotland Yard, who returns for many more subsequent adventures. In his first appearance, he is faced with a crime that at first seems completely unmotivated: a young servant has been murdered in her attic room at the country house of the Maxie family, Martingale. Further, she was inside a locked room (one of the classic scenarios of the genre) when the murder occurred.
The victim is the beautiful serving-girl, Sally Jupp, who had been a resident at the nearby home for unwed mothers, St. Mary’s Refuge for Girls, where she had given birth to her son, Jimmie. She has retained the child and keeps him with her at Martingale; most of the Maxies, and the village as well, are sure that a fallen woman like Sally Jupp should be grateful to have a position as a servant at such a fine estate.
But although Sally works efficiently, she does not have a humble spirit, and she quickly alienates the long-tenured housekeeper, Martha, who spends most of her time caring for the senile and bedridden master of Martingale. She has similarly affronted Miss Liddell, warden of St. Mary’s, and others. When, during an annual garden party at the estate, she is found in the servants’ quarters—to which the entire community has been summoned by Jimmie’s howls—it soon becomes apparent that the number of people harboring a score to settle with Sally Jupp is quite large.
The task of sorting out the evidence falls to Inspector Adam Dalgleish of Scotland Yard. The omniscient third-person narrator follows the police proceedings with care, but the narrator controls the flow of information so as to keep the identity of the murderer obscured from the readers. Everyone turns out to have secrets, not the least of which is Sally Jupp’s secret. Inspector Dalgleish must sort through the ambiguous testimonies of witnesses, evaluate the conflicting motives, and expose the hidden agendas before he can establish the identity of the murderer and provide the evidence that will prove his accusation.
The investigation comes to a climax in the group scene familiar to readers of Agatha Christie as the detective gathers the suspects together and reviews the evidence before them, eliminating the innocent and zeroing in on the single guilty party.
The novel was a success upon its publication; fans of mysteries recognized the skill with which the story was plotted and the realism with which the characters were delineated. Adam Dalgleish returned in a long and successful series of novels, and his creator, together with Ruth Rendell, inherited the mantle of Agatha Christie as the leading writers of the mystery and detective fiction genre.
Bibliography
Gidez, Richard B. P. D. James. Twayne’s English Authors, 430. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1986.
Hubley, Erlene. “Adam Dalgliesh: Byronic Hero,” Clues: A Journal of Detection 3 (Fall/Winter 1982): 40–46.
Kotker, Joan G. “P. D. James’s Adam Dalgliesh Series.” In In the Beginning: First Novels in Mystery Series. Edited by Mary Jean DeMarr. Bowling Green, Ohio: Popular, 1995.
Categories: Crime Fiction, Detective Novels, Mystery Fiction
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