THE LIGHTHOUSE
By P.D. James
Faber & Faber. 336 pages. £7.79
ISBN 0 571 22918 2
I have been fascinated by crime fiction for a long time, but only from a distance, wondering why it was so popular, and yet often so sneered at. Why does crime drama so dominate our TV screens, whether a pretty pathologist or a terse detective is in view? Writing this column has forced me to attempt to answer some of those questions. Where better to start than with P.D. James, ‘The greatest contemporary writer of classic crime’, according to The Sunday Times?
The Lighthouse is her most recent work and involves Adam Dalgleish, her popular detective hero solving a murder on a Cornish island. The setting here is powerfully evoked, with the strength and power of the sea, the danger of the cliffs and the rapidly changing weather all bound up in the plot. Such an environment gives a sense of perspective to the actions and characters described, however sinister or strange they may seem; forces of nature are stronger, and ultimately more dangerous.
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