THE PRIVATE PATIENT By P.D. James, Faber, Rs 695

A murder mystery by P.D. James is always different. Its distinction lies not so much in the manner in which she makes her detective, Adam Dalgliesh, unravel the mystery, but in the sheer literary quality of her writing.

In this book the murder is announced in the very first sentence, even though it does not actually occur until a hundred pages later. The story begins with a scar, and it ends with the suggestion that it lies in the power of love to heal all scars.

The story is set in an old manor house in Dorset, which has been bought over by a Harley Street surgeon, and made into a private clinic. To this clinic arrives Rhoda Gradwyn, a well-known (notorious?) investigative journalist. She is strangled on the night of her operation. It is obvious that the murderer was an insider since no outsider had access to the clinic.

Commander Dalgliesh arrives with his team of two — detective-inspector Kate Miskin and Sergeant Benton-Smith — that is familiar to those readers who have encountered Dalgliesh before. James introduces two sub-stories concerning the love lives of Dalgliesh and Miskin. Both these stories have happy endings: this novel concludes with Miskin reconciled with her estranged lover, Piers Tarrant, and Dalgliesh married to his fiancée, Emma Lavenham. There is another sub-plot, somewhat unconnected with the mystery, but critical to the novel’s overall message about the healing power of love.

The first murder in Dorset is followed by a second and an attempted third. The motives of the first two murders lie in the victims’ past and in the history of the manor. Dalgliesh comes close to uncovering the mystery, but lacks sufficient evidence. He does not quite believe the murderer’s dying confession, which he sees as too contrived. Even though he knows the case is officially closed, he follows his nose only to discover a reality that is as complicated as it is poignant.

As solving mysteries go, in the conventional sense of bringing a murderer to justice, this is not one of Dalgliesh’s successes. The book ends with his and Emma’s wedding reception. There is the suggestion that Dalgliesh’s squad must be wound up. Choices have been placed before him: readers are informed thus, but not told what the choices are. Are we saying good-bye to Dalgliesh, at least in the incarnation that we have known him in? It is a tantalizing, if unavoidable, question as the reader puts the book down.

The book is memorable not only because of its plot and its twists and turns, but also because of some wonderful human moments. Emma Lavenham’s father teasingly interviewing Dalgliesh. Dalgliesh gently tucking in Miskin as she takes a nap under a blanket during their long drive back from the Midlands to Dorset. A wonderfully sincere headmaster in the Midlands, who provides some crucial links. These are some of the scenes and incidents that James weaves into her narrative to make it more alive and genuine.

Finally, James’s style: “It was a good day for a drive into the country, a day on which Dalgliesh would usually take his time exploring byways and parking from time to time to enjoy gazing at the thrusting trunks of the great trees stripped for winter, the rising boughs and the dark intricacies of the high twigs patterned against a cloudless sky. Autumn had been prolonged but now he drove under the dazzling white ball of a winter sun, its frayed rim smudging a blue as clear as on a summer day. Its light would soon fade but, now, under its strong brightness, the fields, low hills and clusters of trees were sharp edged and shadowless.” After such prose, what review?