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Content snapshot
Flag an inaccuracy →What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.
Violence
Some
Three murders staged to mirror historical crimes; the investigation involves the museum's world
Language
Barely any
Mild language
Sexual Content
Some
Some sexual content in the examination of the victims' private lives
Substance Use
Barely any
Mild content
Emotional Intensity
A lot
The specific distance that aestheticizing violence creates; whether representing famous murders in a museum makes them safer or more available as templates
What this book is about
The Dupayne Museum in North London — a private museum of the interwar years, about to be closed by a family dispute — becomes the scene of a murder that appears to mirror one of the crimes depicted in its 'Murder Room' exhibit. When a second and third body follow, Commander Adam Dalgliesh investigates a case where the murders are both art and crime, each staged to echo a famous killing from the period the museum commemorates. P.D. James's twelfth Dalgliesh novel is the most formally inventive, using the museum as a frame that gives the killings a theatrical quality.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
twelfth Adam Dalgliesh novel by P.D. James
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