Hailed as “mystery at its best” by The New York Times, Shroud for a Nightingale is the fourth book in bestselling author P.D. James’s Adam Dalgliesh mystery series. The young women of Nightingale House are there to learn to nurse and comfort the suffering. But when one of the students plays patient in a demonstration of nursing skills, she is horribly, brutally killed. Another student dies … killed. Another student dies equally mysteriously, and it is up to Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard to unmask a killer who has decided to prescribe murder as the cure for all ills.more
A creepy murder mystery set in a nursing school in early 1970s England. Inspector Dalgleish encounters eccentric characters and a haunting, gothic location. The outcome is difficult to guess as P.D. James expects you to pay attention to the detail in this story. I love the twists as it reaches its conclusion.
Chief Superintendent Dalgliesh takes no prisoners in ‘Shroud for a Nightingale’. He cuts through the hospital hierarchy and the arrogance of the senior surgeon with icy firmness in his bid to find the killer of two student nurses at Nightingale House – a hospital nursing school in Sussex, England.
The atmosphere of the hospital community is portrayed vividly, so that the reader is there; listening, observing, involved and judging. Each of the complex characters is hiding something and Dalgliesh has to sift through the secrets to unmask an evil mind.
The plot twists its way through red herrings, clues, intriguing relationships, secrets, blackmail and back-biting to an unexpected ending. The devil is in the detail that most readers miss, including me.
I would have liked a few light-hearted moments to offset the unpleasantness of the characters and the brooding personality of Dalgliesh. I also found some of the scenes a little long. However, overall I very much enjoyed re-reading this classic whodunit told in the style of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.
Although written in the 1970s, the story has a timeless quality that makes it well worth reading (or re-reading).
PD James is one of the greats, and as an author I find much to mine from her work. This is my favourite James novel. It’s worth reading just for the creative murder method she employs to dispatch her victim – still my favourite murder scene and I don’t know if I will ever be able to best it in my own writing.
She creates a vivid community of characters in the isolated world of a traditional nursing school where the students live on premise and all have reasons for doing each other in. When the stable world is disrupted by the chaos of murder, Adam Dalgliesh intrudes gently to probe for the truth until he uncovers it, all the while self-conscious about the damage the murder has done to those who survived as much as those who didn’t. Great characterizations, an immersive world and a plot that the reader can solve – James always plays fair – if they pay attention closely enouhg.
Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, OBE, FRSA, FRSL, known as P. D. James, is an English crime writer and a life peer in the House of Lords, UK. She was born on 3 August 1920 and died 27 November 2014.
Shroud for a Nightingale is a book my mother gave me many years ago. I probably read it then, but had forgotten the story, so when I came across it, I read it again.
Nightingale House is where a group of third year student nurses live while they learn the art of nursing. There is a routine inspection of the nursing school by the General Nursing Council. It ends horribly with the death of a student during a demonstration of intra-gastric feeding tubes. One of the students, Heather Pearce, who is playing the part of the patient during a demonstration, is internally fed bathroom disinfectant instead of milk and dies thrashing on the floor in front of the class. Jo Fallon was meant to be the patient. However, she was taken ill at the last minute and Heather Pearce was the substitute.
The question is raised as to whether this is an accident or murder. Then, this gruesome beginning is compounded with a second student death. Another student nurse is found dead in her bed. This time Jo Fallon is the victim; poison is the method. It is now clear this is murder and Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh is called in to solve the murders. His implacable determination to get at the truth is welcomed by the nursing staff with varying degrees of coolness. Dalgliesh is not quite as developed as a character as he is in later books, but the basics are there.
I love P.D. James’s attention to detail: the descriptions bring the locations so vividly to mind. There are a lot of red herrings in this story and I am not ashamed to say that I changed my mind a couple of times before I got to the end of the book. I still did not guess the end of the story. She never fails to produce clever, unexpected solutions, and a dramatically satisfying ending, and Shroud for a Nightingale is no different. I enjoyed it and highly recommend it.
Valerie Penny
Every book she writes is excellent.. narrative, characters, writing….
Fantastic; have read many of her books. She leads you in; excellent writing and set up of the plot and solution. Wish she was still alive and writing!!
PD James really hits her stride in her fourth book.