Author | P. D. James |
---|---|
Language | English |
Series | Adam Dalgliesh #8 |
Genre | Crime, mystery |
Publisher | Faber & Faber |
Publication date | 2 October 1989 |
Publication place | United Kingdom |
Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
Pages | 454 (first edition, hardback) |
ISBN | 0-571-14178-1 (first edition, hardback) |
OCLC | 20416380 |
Preceded by | A Taste for Death |
Followed by | Original Sin |
Devices and Desires is a 1989 detective novel by English writer P. D. James, the eighth book of her Adam Dalgliesh series. It takes place on Larksoken, a fictional isolated headland in Norfolk. The title comes from the service of Morning Prayer in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer: "We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts".
Commander Adam Dalgliesh, having published his second volume of poetry, retreats to the remote Larksoken headland where his recently deceased aunt, Jane Dalgliesh, has left him a converted windmill. However, a psychopathic serial killer, known as the Norfolk Whistler, is on the loose and seems to have arrived at Larksoken when Dalgliesh finds the body of the nearby nuclear power plant's Acting Administrative Officer during an evening stroll on the beach.
In a 1990 book review for The New York Times , Judith Crist wrote "Her newest mystery, 'Devices and Desires,' is P. D. James at better than her best... She has not failed us, and she has exceeded herself." [1]
A television version of the novel was produced for Britain's ITV network in 1991. It starred Roy Marsden as Adam Dalgliesh.
Phyllis Dorothy James White, Baroness James of Holland Park, known professionally as P. D. James, was an English novelist and life peer. Her rise to fame came with her series of detective novels featuring the police commander and poet, Adam Dalgliesh.
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman is the title of a detective novel by English writer P. D. James and of a TV series of four dramas developed from that novel. It was published by Faber and Faber in the UK in 1972 and by Charles Scribner's Sons in the US.
Cordelia Gray is a fictional character created by English author Phyllis D. James. Gray is the protagonist of two novels, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972) and of The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982). Cordelia Gray is a young woman who works as a private detective in London, having inherited the detective agency "Pryde" on the death of her boss, Bernie Pryde, who committed suicide.
Adam Dalgliesh is a fictional character who is the protagonist of fourteen mystery novels by P. D. James; the first being James's 1962 novel Cover Her Face. He also appears in the two novels featuring James's other detective, Cordelia Gray.
Unnatural Causes is a detective novel by English crime writer P. D. James. The third to feature Adam Dalgliesh, it was published in the UK by Faber & Faber in 1967 and by Charles Scribner's Sons in the US. A paperback edition followed the same year. An adaptation of the novel was filmed for television in 1993.
A Certain Justice is a detective novel by British writer P. D. James, published in 1997 by Faber & Faber in the UK and by Alfred A. Knopf in the US. It was the tenth to feature her recurring character Adam Dalgliesh and the book was dedicated to her five grandchildren.
Innocent Blood (1980) is a crime novel by English writer P. D. James. Unlike her Adam Dalgliesh mysteries it is not a detective story but closer to a psychological thriller and was the first of James' novels to step outside the detective genre. It follows the story of a young woman searching for her biological roots, having known since childhood that she was adopted, and the dark truths that she uncovers.
The Lighthouse is a 2005 detective novel by English writer P. D. James, the thirteenth book in the Adam Dalgliesh mystery series.
Roy Marsden is an English actor who portrayed Adam Dalgliesh in the Anglia Television dramatisations (1983–1998) of P. D. James's detective novels, and Neil Burnside in the spy drama The Sandbaggers (1979–1980).
Judith Crist was an American film critic and academic.
Death in Holy Orders is a 2001 detective novel by P.D. James, the eleventh book in the Adam Dalgliesh series.
The Murder Room is a 2003 detective novel by English writer P. D. James, the twelfth in the Adam Dalgliesh series. It takes place in London, particularly the Dupayne Museum on the edge of Hampstead Heath in the London Borough of Camden.
Original Sin is a 1994 detective novel by English writer P. D. James, the ninth book of her Adam Dalgliesh series. It is set in London, mainly in Wapping in the Borough of Tower Hamlets, and centers on the city's oldest publishing house, Peverell Press, headquartered in a mock-Venetian palace on the River Thames.
Cover Her Face is the debut 1962 crime novel of P. D. James. It details the investigations into the death of a young, ambitious maid, surrounded by a family which has reasons to want her gone – or dead. The title is taken from a passage from John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi: "Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle; she died young," which is quoted by one of the characters in the novel.
Death of an Expert Witness is a detective novel by English writer P. D. James, the sixth of her Adam Dalgliesh series. It was published in 1977 in the UK by Faber and Faber, and in the US by Charles Scribner's Sons. Set in the Fens, it follows the investigation of the murder of a senior scientist at a police laboratory where his colleagues are too experienced to have left clues.
The Black Tower is a 1975 detective novel by English writer P.D. James, the fifth book in her Adam Dalgliesh series.
A Taste for Death is a 1986 crime novel by the British writer P. D. James, the seventh in the popular Commander Adam Dalgliesh series. The novel won the Silver Dagger in 1986, losing out on the Gold to Ruth Rendell's Live Flesh. It was nominated for a Booker Prize in 1987. The book has been adapted for television and radio.
Shroud for a Nightingale is a 1971 detective novel by English writer P. D. James, part of her Adam Dalgliesh series. Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard is called in to investigate the death of two student nurses at the hospital nursing school of Nightingale House.
The Private Patient (2008) is a crime novel by English author P. D. James, the fourteenth and last in her Adam Dalgliesh series.
A Mind to Murder (1963) is a crime novel by English writer P. D. James, the second in her Adam Dalgliesh series.