A Mind to Murder

A Mind to Murder is P.D. James’s second novel, again starring Adam Dangliesh. While her first novel had fantastic writing and a lukewarm plot, A Mind to Murder is much more even on both accounts, which unfortunately just made the book plain and forgettable.

Cover Her Face had entertaining, witty writing. It took place in a house that was falling apart, both literally and figuratively, with a family that had a complex dynamic. We also got to see the victim, the catalyst for the family’s decay, in full display before her unfortunate demise.

A Mind to Murder begins in an upscale mental clinic, the Steen Psychiatric Clinic, with the corpse of Miss Enid Bolam, the administrative head, discovered in the basement. We don’t know who Miss Bolam or any of the characters are at this point, so it’s hard to be interested or engaged with them, despite the discovery of a corpse. Even as the book goes on, although there is some workplace drama, the Steen’s staff just doesn’t have the same vitriolic dynamic as the Maxies in Cover Her Face.

One point to note is that while this book takes place in a mental clinic, the focus is entirely on the medical and administrative staff, not the patients. As a result, there are no... “unfortunate” depictions of mental illness in the novel.

While opening with the murder made the cast less initially engaging than in Cover Her Face, I do think it made the investigation more interesting. A good chunk of Cover Her Face felt boring because it was just pages and pages of talking and witness interviews without any action or events happening. While the investigation of A Mind to Murder is also mostly talking, it functions as our introduction to each of the suspects as well. After all, we have to learn about the cast during the investigation since we never got an opportunity to do so before the murder. By shifting its focus from character to character, and functioning almost as a series of mini character studies, A Mind to Murder manages to maintain engagement in a way that Cover Her Face couldn’t.

Unlike Cover Her Face, which ended up being a jumble of coincidence, the mysterious circumstances of the murder in A Mind to Murder are mostly the result of conscious effort by the guilty. The tricks and conscious intent to deceive made A Mind to Murder feel much more like a satisfying detective story. Unfortunately, P.D. James decides to go one unclued twist too far, but it’s still much better than Cover Her Face, where most of the solution relied upon information given in the denouement.

While there is trickery, it isn’t anything particularly brilliant or memorable. The cast is just a nondescript group of doctors, nurses, and support staff. While the criminal component of A Mind to Murder is definitely a huge improvement from Cover Her Face, A Mind to Murder is left with no notable features, good or bad, resulting in an inoffensive but unmemorable book.