A Grisly End Queen of Crime Pd James has Hinted That Her Latest Novel, a Private Patient, May Be Commander Adam Dalgliesh's Last Case . . . But Will It Be Hers Too?
Sunday Herald › September 16, 2008
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Summary
IT is Sunday afternoon, shortly after lunch: steak pie, mashed tatties, something green and healthy and tasteless, followed by apple crumble and a solid dollop of custard. The wife, having dealt with the dishes, is stretched out on the sofa, mouth ajar, snoring lightly. The kids are in their rooms communing via the internet with other kids thousands of miles away. You have supplied yourself with a mug of tea, studied with disgust the TV schedules, and have turned to the Sunday papers in the hope of a good read. In these "blissful" circumstances, what is it that you want to read about? "Naturally, " wrote George Orwell, in reply to his own question, "about a murder."
This was the scene - not so subtly doctored for 21st-century sensibilities - set in Orwell's famous essay on the decline of the English murder. But what kind of murder did we want to read about in the years before Hitler's bombs began to fall?See the full content of this document
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A Grisly End Queen of Crime Pd James has Hinted That Her Latest Novel, a Private Patient, May Be Commander Adam Dalgliesh's Last Case . . . But Will It Be Hers Too?
Orwell's research into celebrated cases threw up a variety of common factors. Six of the real-life crimes he looked at included poisoning. Eight out of 10 of the criminals belonged to the middle- class. Sex was never far away as a motive. In several cases respectability - "the desire to gain a secure position in life, not to forfeit one's social position by some scandal such as divorce" - was a prime reason for committing murder. Money, too, was frequently at the root of the evil act, but not necessarily large amounts of it. And...
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