Book Review: Cover Her Face is the first of the Adam Dalgliesh mysteries, and the Chief-Inspector comes off as the least interesting character in the book. He may solve the mystery in his deliberate and enigmatic way, but we see and learn next to nothing about him. He's not quite a non-entity, but not a lot more; even his stalwart right-arm, Detective-Sergeant Martin is given more personality. Fortunately the other characters are interesting, the writing and plotting are brilliant, and P.D. James closes in Thin Man style with all the suspects gathered in a room to learn which of them is the perp. I'll admit that I had strong suspicions about the eventual culprit, but I was far from certain. Cover Her Face is intelligently written and James is fair to the long suffering mystery reader. I felt if I'd been a little more rigorous, carefully checking off suspects as they were eliminated by the evidence, I should've been able to solve the mystery for myself. In contrast to Dorothy Sayers, P.D. (Phyllis Dorothy) James grew up poor and under-educated, but later became a Baroness -- this may be the first book I've read by a Baroness. Despite the sketchily drawn Chief-Inspector, Cover Her Face left me wanting to read more P.D. James. [4★]
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