P.D. James

Wherever the crime novels of P. D. James are discussed by critics, there is a tendency on the one hand to exaggerate her merits and on the other to castigate her as a genre writer who is getting above herself. Perhaps underlying the debate is that familiar, false opposition set up between novel is not considered true literature unless it is a tiny bit dull.

Those commentators who would elevate James’s books to the status of high literature point to her painstakingly constructed characters, her elaborate settings, her sense of place, and her love of abstractions: notions about morality, duty, pain, and pleasure are never far from the lips of her police officers and murderers. Others find Review groans, “Could we please proceed with the business of clapping the handcuffs on the killer?”

James is certainly capable of strikingly good writing. She takes immense trouble to provide her characters with convincing histories and passions. Her descriptive digressions are part of the pleasure of her books and give them dignity and weight. But it is equally true that they frequently interfere with the story; the patinas to be less interested in the specifics of detection than in her characters’ vulnerabilities and perplexities.

However, once the rules of a chosen genre cramp creative thought, there is no reason why an able and interesting writer should accept them. In her latest book, there are signs that James is beginning to feel constrained by the crime-novel genre. Here her determination to leave areas of ambiguity in the James to slide out of her handcuffs and stride into the territory of the mainstream novel.