The Private Patient (Vintage)
by P.D. James
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Book Reviews of The Private Patient (Vintage)
Book Review: Unease, winding down.
Summary: 4 Stars
I wouldn't recommend this to someone who has never read PD James before. It isn't the strongest of her books in several respects. Additionally, James seems to be working purposefully with unease, missed connections, unclear futures and lack of meaning. I tend to think that someone who trusts and is familiar with her work will give her the slack to try those elements out as part of the mystery novel. However, they aren't the kinds of plot points that make for a satisfying novel, full of closure.
What do I mean by this? For example: Clues that feel significant, and that lead nowhere. Note that I don't mean red herrings-- I mean clues that literally lead nowhere. There are red herrings too, but there are also unexplored moments of the kind that normally mean something in detective books. Also, I think that there's something odd about the way that she handles Rhoda as a character. James puts us into her perspective and lets us have access to her as a living character for nearly 125 pages. Not bad by itself, but after that, Rhoda is left a cipher. Her death feels utterly disconnected from what we know of her life. It creates a jarring effect (and results in many of the thrown away clues that I mentioned earlier). She has her secrets as well. We're given glimpses of them, but they remain tantalizingly opaque.
There are also the issues with AD and his special investigations squad-- the looming dissolution of the unit hangs over the book. It feels as though James has as much desire to tie up the loose ends in her character's lives as much or even more than she wants the murder to be solved. Actually, the solution to the murder is neither simple nor clear-- I was left feeling frustrated myself and not quite smart enough to get what either James or AD were driving at. But it isn't, somehow, the main point of the novel either.
PD James has a lot of credit with me, and I enjoy her writing very much. That remains true in The Private Patient. Even a flawed James is better than much of what is out there on the market-- at least for this reader. This said, The Private Patient is an odd sideways kind of book, and its concerns are not typical for a mystery novel. If you want a typical mystery novel, look elsewhere. (And sometimes you really don't want to have to work to read a book.) If you want a typical James/Dalgliesh novel, look into her earlier work.
Book Review: Illogical Medical care
Summary: 2 Stars
There is one very serious flaw in the plot of this story, and it is so ridiculous an oversight that it creates a situation where none of the rest of what happened would have been possible -- NO surgeon, no matter how skilled, no matter how fancy / private / exclusive / elegant the facility, would send a patient back to a private room after major surgery and have her tucked into bed and left there all night without electronic monitors, nurses standing by and checking on her every few minutes, a full time staff member or trained medical professional right by her bedside or outside the room the entire night. This procedure sounded more like the treatment one would receive at a spa than at a serious medical clinic. He would have his medical license removed for malpractice if this happened ever, even if only once. It would be dangerous, negligent and ridiculous to leave a patient alone after surgery that took hours under full anaesthesia without close supervision until the patient had recovered enough to be discharged. This is such a gap in believability that it makes the fact that the victim was murdered irreconcilable with any reality. She could have died of complications from the surgery, the anaesthesia, infection, falling - so many other things before the perpetrator even got to her. This was such an annoying glitch in the story that it made it hard for me to believe or care about any of the rest of it - the food, the chefs' weird relationship, the buildings, the connections, the grounds, the witch, the motive for the murder(s) - any of it. It makes me wonder if editors even read their clients' work any more.Book Review: Another fine novel from the Baroness
Summary: 5 Stars
(Steps up to the platform, taps microphone, oops feedback, adjusts device), starts to talk:
OK, I'm going to review P.D. James's "The Private Patient" now. Umm, but before I begin, I want to tell you that while you learn who the murder victim is in the first paragraph, the murder doesn't take place for another 90 pages in a book that has 352 of them. Those who'd prefer to hear about something else might want to try room 15B where . . . (Sound of chairs scraping, scurrying, and cries of "hello---I must be going!"
Alright, for those who remain, this is another of the author's tales of the intellectual detective Adam Dalgliesh and his squad, who must discover who murdered that private patient, Rhoda Gradwyn, an investigative reporter who shows up at the Dorsetshire clinic of a plastic surgeon in order to get a scar removed. She's a private patient, which in British terms means in that the operation is on her dime, not that of the coungtry's (in)famous National Health Service.
As always with Ms. James, the novel is stuffed with background information about the many suspects, lush descriptive passages, cynical asides about the state of the modern world, and a good suspenseful plot (albeit one more impressionistic than usual, even by the author's own standards).
If you're a fan of the series, don't pass it up--it may be the last one Ms. James, approaching 90, may ever get to write. And it would appear from some of the scenes in this book that she's well aware of that.
Book Review: Only So-So
Summary: 3 Stars
As a die-hard P.D. James fan, I shrink at the task of reviewing this, her latest installment of Adam Dalgleish and his special crimes unit squad. I must say that as much as I wanted to like this book, I was disappointed with it.
As a starter, I found the story to be average, and almost entirely predictable all the way through. The location descriptions fall short of James' typical lavish details, and the content and character development normally found in a P.D. James works falls short of her best efforts to date (in order, they would be Death in Holy Orders, The Murder Room, and The Lighthouse). This was a true disappointment for me after following Dalgleish for many years. I wonder whether the Baronesse James of Holland Park is using a ghost writer now? Perish the thought!!
If you absolutely need to see the next steps in the Adam Dalgleish/Emma Levanham saga, they you must read this book. But if you are not interested in how that ends up, you can save yourself some time by passing this one over.
Book Review: Plodding tale, not saved by a clever ending
Summary: 3 Stars
P.D. James, the baroness of English mysteries, sets any table or scene, for that matter, with those colorful and enticing details of fabric, furniture, settings with Tudorian, Victorian, Edwardian accuracy, as the case may be. Her police characters, refined over years, are old friends come to dinner. The philosopical maunderings of Adam Dalgliesch become common place after one or two of her books. To her credit, she mines the prejudices and fancies of the English class, as societal commentary, as well as any daily journalist. Her plot, however, is slow in developing, predictive in outcome, and repetitious; her dialogue is weighty, unrealistic. When her characters speak in perfect declarative sentences, the dialogue loses its spontaneity and zest. The Jamesian standard template of murder in isolated communities, scattered around the England countryside, populated with a cast of half dozen suspects is wearing thin.