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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN num: 9780743219617
ISBN number: 0743219619
Label: Touchstone
Manufacturer: Touchstone
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 352
Printing Date: 2001-09
Publishing house: Touchstone
Release Date: September 18, 2001
Sale Popularity Level: 93234
Studio: Touchstone
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Just recovered from a grave illness, Commander Adam Dalgliesh is called to the bedside of an elderly priest. When Dalgliesh arrives, Father Baddeley is dead. Is it merely his own brush with mortality that causes Dalgliesh to sense the shadow of death about to fall once more?
'Splendid, macabre,' wrote the London Sunday Telegraph. 'The Black Tower is a masterpiece,' the London Sunday Times concurred.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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The gloomy tone that pervades this novel which seemed to turn a lot of people off was actually what I found interesting. The Inspector, recovering from an illness goes to visit an elderly priest who is a family friend at a home for people with degenerative diseases. When he arrives he's informed that the priest has died, but Dalgliesh begins to wonder if it was natural or murder. My only complaint with the story was partially to blame on my own attention span: Many of the suspects began to bleed together, and my inability to consume long passages at once left me looking back to keep the characters straight in my head. As a result I didn't find the book as absorbing as some of her others. Yet at the same time, the final forty pages was some of the most suspenseful of anything I've read thus far, and Dalgliesh's personal struggles throughout the book gave a human dimension to the character that up to now hadn't been seen.
Rated by buyers 
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Unlike some authors (Jonathan Kellerman, Maeve Binchy, Steve Martini) who write some terrific books and then go downhill, PD James's books get better and better with time. It's her early works I can't stand. It's not just me, either. Some of her early novels were entirely rewritten for television to get people to watch. I once contacted PBS to see if I had missed some of her books that seemed so good on Mystery! They actually told me this. This book was about in the middle of her long career, but it just never captured my interest. Look at her settings--hospitals, nursing homes, monastaries, hardly the locales for a hotbed of action to keep you on the edge of your seat. This book is set at a home for the disabled with progressive diseases out in the middle of nowhere. Dalgliesh is working alone, in fact recovering from mono and pneumonia and goes there to visit an elderly priest who turns up dead of a heart attack. There isn't much to suggest crimes have in fact been committed and Dalgliesh's sudden deduction of what is going on at the end is not even remotely believable. The only interesting thing anyone does in this book is drop dead occasionally. It's not a police procedural. When I compare it to something like Death in Holy Orders, there's no reason to read this book. It isn't awful (and some of James's other books are really awful) but she has much better ones in her repertoire.
Rated by buyers 
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This book begins in a gloomy mood and in a setting that seems hardly designed to hold a reader's attention: a nursing home. But the writing is so good that I stuck with it, and it all comes to a thrilling finale. Then I did something I rarely do: reread the book. This time I was completely bowled over by the quality of the writing. This is one of the most perfectly crafted books I have ever read. As such, I would rate it with such works as The Great Gatsby, Jude the Obscure, and Appointment in Samarra. What a surprise from a mystery novel.
Rated by buyers 
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Adam Dalgleish is back in this well written, though ultimately depressing and bleak thriller. Recuperating from a near-death illness, Adam is summoned to a small village by an old friend, a priest named Father Michael. However, when he gets there, his old friend has died of a heart attack, and Adam finds himself involved with a hospice for the young disabled, i.e., terminally ill patients. James serves up a host of pathetic, sad creatures and as usual, a cast of mostly unlikeable characters. Dalgliesh serves more as an observer than a detective, since he is having his own crisis of whether to retire or not, but he nonetheless manages to investigate a series of deaths that may or may not be murder.
James continues her mastery of atmospheric tension and the culprit's identity is expertly hidden until the end.
Rated by buyers -
First I should admit that I'm not a PD James fan. In fact this is the very first of her books that I've read. It may be that the darkness of this book gives me the wrong impression as to how she writes. It does remind me of Agatha Christie's type of stories but it may also be because the singular character of Commander Adam Dalgleish is going through a dark time related to a recent illness.
The story itself is nothing special, though it may have been in 1975, but now it's kind of dated. It may also be because I find her style to be a little slow or ponderous and I'm used to the writings of Ian Rankin and James Lee Burke. No I don't think that there needs to be a shooting or car chase every other page, but it would be nice to read about something other than a description of the scenary.
To be fair about it I am planning on reading one of her later stories in the series, and to catch up on the character by watching some of the episodes on PBS. Just one man's opinion.
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