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P.D. James is 83 this year. She's been awarded the title Baroness James of Holland Park and engraved her name high on the list of great mystery writers. In the face of her iconic achievement the fact that this book is not her best hardly matters. If you like P.D. James, you'll like THE MURDER ROOM. As in many of her recent books, this story revolves around a building. In this case the building is a small private museum in London devoted to documenting the years between World War I and World War II. As the story opens, the future of the Dupayne museum is uncertain, its trustees locked in a battle of wills over whether the museum should be shuttered and its assets dispersed. The museum features a gallery called The Murder Room, which showcases famous murders of the period. When one of the trustees is found burned to death in his Jaguar in the garage behind the museum, staff members suspect that the murderer is copying a grizzly homicide chronicled in the museum's exhibits. One of the staffers of the museum, its curator James Calder-Hale, has a history in foreign intelligence that the powers-that-be would prefer remain undisclosed, so they call in Dalgliesh's squad to make sure that the crime will be investigated with sensitivity to the national interest. When a second murder is discovered which also mimics one of the cases of the period, the action escalates and the pool of suspects narrows. The climax is reasonably suspenseful and the murderer turned out to be someone I hadn't suspected. The suspects include the part-time rent boy who looks after the garden, the well-heeled trustees and the working class staff who keep the museum going. These people and all of their friends and relations find their way into the story. The characters are exceptionally well drawn. There is the seductive Carolyn Dupayne who, in addition to her duties as a co-principal at a private girls' school, keeps an apartment in the museum. Her brother Marcus, the most nondescript character in the book, supports her wish to keep the museum open but is too ineffectual to do much. Neville Dupayne, the other sibling, a successful psychiatrist with more compassion for his patients than his own daughter, seeks to close the museum because he believes that these relics are nothing more than clutter and that the museum no longer serves a useful purpose. Through all the danger and confusion, Dalgliesh obsesses constantly over his blossoming love for Emma Lavenham, a Cambridge professor whom he met in James' last book, DEATH IN HOLY ORDERS. As the book ends, we see Dalgliesh on the brink of what may turn out to be the love of his life. The story is told at a pace that is leisurely even for P.D. James. We explore each character associated with the museum at length before the murder (finally) occurs after page 100. There is much drinking of tea and coffee and discussion of the architectural merits of various churches and buildings as they appear in the story, and yet, almost against reason, the narrative held my interest. There are a few surprises: the usually conservative James makes issues of class and the casual cruelty of the rich toward those who serve them central to the plot, for one thing. And who could help but wonder what purpose a love interest for Dalgliesh might serve as the series continues? As I said, if you like P.D. James, you'll like this book. But if you haven't read her before, don't start with this one; she's written better.
Reviewed by Carroll Johnson, December 2003
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