The Murder Room

P.D. James

Dr. Neville Dupayne has been murdered while getting his car from the Dupayne Museum. He had recently voted to close the museum, although it was against his siblings' wishes. The following Friday he was getting his car as usual for the weekend. Someone appears to have met him in the garage and killed him.

Commander Adam Dalgliesh and the special team have been given the case. The Dupayne Museum is a niche museum, with memorabilia from the Between the Wars years, the 1920's and 1930's. It's attendees are small. It has a special feature, a room that showcases murders from the time period, the Murder Room. Dalgliesh had been to the museum the week before the Dr. Dupayne's death when an old friend wanted to show Dalgliesh the Murder Room.

The people involved with the Dupayne Museum are an odd lot. There are the remaining Dupaynes, Marcus and Caroline, the housekeeper who lives in a cottage on the premises, the secretary who couldn't hold jobs in other offices, the boy who helps around the museum with gardening and indoor work part time, and the two volunteers. There is the stranger rushing from the Dupayne Museum the evening of the murder who knocked the housekeeper off her bicycle. Then the second body is found...

The first half of The Murder Room was slow, not holding my attention. But the story picked up after the second body was discovered. Some of the characters came to life for me, like the housekeeper. Others, like the secretary, never made it off the page. By the end of The Murder Room P.D. James had me involved in the tale, wondering who did it. (I was too busy to figure out the clues.)

Cover Her Face
A Mind to Murder
Unnatural Causes
Shroud for a Nightingale
The Black Tower
Death of an Expert Witness
Taste for Death
Devices and Desires
Original Sin
A Certain Justice
Death in Holy Orders
The Murder Room
The Lighthouse
The Private Patient