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Content snapshot
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Violence
Some
Two murders; the investigation reaches into politics and class; some disturbing crime scenes
Language
Barely any
Mild language
Sexual Content
Some
Some sexual content in the investigation of the victims' private lives
Substance Use
Barely any
Mild content
Emotional Intensity
A lot
The specific accident by which two people from entirely different worlds come to die in the same place; Dalgliesh's ability to inhabit each of the novel's social worlds without being absorbed by any of them
What this book is about
Two bodies are found in the vestry of a London church — Sir Paul Berowne, a Conservative MP and former government minister, and a tramp named Harry Mack. They were killed in the same place at the same time, apparently by the same person, but nothing else connects them. Commander Adam Dalgliesh investigates one of his most complex cases, in which the political world, the church, and the lives of people who are invisible to each other intersect. P.D. James's seventh Dalgliesh novel is her longest and is often considered her masterpiece — a full portrait of English society in the 1980s.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
seventh Adam Dalgliesh novel by P.D. James; often considered her masterpiece
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