Shroud for a Nightingale

I Didn’t See That Coming — Classic British Detective Fiction

Shroud for a Nightingale by P.D. James is the fourth of her series featuring detective Adam Dalgliesh. In a 1972 book review, Newgate Callendar of The New York Times wrote:

“James works in the old tradition. She takes all the time in the world to establish her plot, her people and her locale. False clues are liberally seeded.”

Synopsis

Whilst acting as a patient during a demonstration at a nurses’ training school, one of the students — Nurse Pearce — dies in agony. Somebody had switched the milk she was supposed to have been fed by an intragastric tube with bleach.

Seventeen days later, Nurse Fallon is found dead in her bed, her eyes wide open but cold and opaque.

Was one or both of the deaths suicide?
Was one or both of the deaths accidental?
Was the first death murder but of the wrong victim?
Or were there two murders with two intended victims?

Chief Inspector Dalgleish is given the challenge of finding out.

Review

Shroud for a Nightingale is a classic British whodunit. It has a closed community, a limited number of suspects, a trail of clues and a detective tasked with finding the murderer. Yet despite a relatively low body count — you can add them up on one hand and have fingers to spare — this is not a cosy crime novel. Whilst there is little blood or gore, there is plenty of malicious intent.

P.D. James wrote a tight, densely packed story with characters, locations and motivations described in precise and elegant detail. Her choice of backdrop — a nurses’ training school — is one that she knew well, she worked as a civil servant for the NHS for many years, and she captured the political intrigues and petty point-scoring faultlessly. She also provided a credible trail of clues, a murderer and an “I didn’t see that coming” ending.

If you don’t want the facade of a cosy novel but would rather abstain from the gratuitous drugs, sex and violence of hardboiled fiction, P.D. James dominates the middle ground. Shroud for a Nightingale is a mystery, long on clues, characterisation and plot, and a dollop of emotional nastiness thrown in for good measure.

Excerpt

‘She wasn’t carrying my child, and even if she had been, I shouldn’t have been foolish enough to kill her. Incidentally, what I told you about our previous relationship was naturally in confidence.’

He looked across meaningly at Sergeant Masterson.

‘Not that I care whether it’s made public. But, after all, the girl is dead. We may as well try to protect her reputation.’

Dalgliesh found it difficult to believe that Mr Courtney-Briggs was interested in anyone’s reputation but his own. But, gravely, he gave the necessary assurance. He saw the surgeon leave without regret. An egotistical bastard whom it was agreeable, if childish, to provoke. But a murderer? He had the hubris, the nerve and the egotism of a killer. More to the point, he had had the opportunity. And the motive? Hadn’t it been a little disingenuous of him to have confessed so readily to his relationship with Josephine Fallon? Admittedly he couldn’t have hoped to keep his secret for long; a hospital was hardly the most discreet of institutions. Had he been making a virtue of necessity, ensuring that Dalgliesh heard the version of the affair before the inevitable gossip reached his ears? Or had it been merely the candour of conceit, the sexual vanity of a man who wouldn’t trouble to conceal any exploit which proclaimed his attraction and virility?

Shroud for a Nightingale by P.D. James