Updated 01/13/07

P.D. James Collection

Featuring Scotland Yard's Commander Adam Dalgliesh

P.D. James is a great mystery writer and the screen adaptations based on her writings are wonderful. I especially like the stories featuring Commander Adam Dalgliesh when played by Roy Marsden. Adam Dalgliesh is an extremely competent detective who is also a brooding widower and poet. The intriguing stories accented by Dalgliesh's personal struggle make these very interesting to watch.

1983

"Death of an Expert Witness"

Part 1: Scotland Yard's Adam Dalgliesh is searching for a "back seat strangler" who has already murdered four people. When an unpopular forensic scientist is found dead in a British government laboratory, Dalgliesh discovers that almost everyone there could be a suspect. When another body is found nearby, the detective must race against time to find the killer.

Part 2: Most of the evidence points to the increasingly apprehensive staff and significant others at Hoggatt's, but Dagliesh is not yet ready to rule out one or two outsiders.

Part 3: Domenica reveals her affair with Lorrimer. Clifford Bradley has a dramatic confession to make - although it is not to Lorrimer's murder. Local detective Tom Doyle has some explaining to do.

1984

"Shroud for a Nightingale"

While on a high profile murder investigation, Dalgliesh travels to a teaching hospital to interview a possible suspect who is seriously ill. At the hospital, Dalgliesh witnesses the murder of one of the nursing students. Is this murder unrelated to his original investigation? The nursing school is run by a group of rigid, middle aged, unmarried senior nurses who find Dalgliesh's presents an assault on their orderly domain. The student nurses are bewildered by the events happening around them. The senior surgeon at the hospital is constantly at odds with Dalgliesh. This is a complex story and a study in Adam Dalglish's investigative methods.

1985

"Cover Her Face"

Part 1: Dalgliesh investigates the murder of a drug dealer found dead in the basement of a book club. Sally Jupp, a former book club employee in London with her infant son for the day, might have seen the assailant.

Part 2: Dalgliesh's determination to find out more about the hidden life of Sally Jupp and her connection with the murdered drug dealer drives fear through the Maxie family and their weekend guests. Acute questioning makes each of them nervous and evasive. There is much that needs explanation and Adam Dalgliesh does not suffer fools gladly.

Part 3: Apart from Sally's friend Derek Pullen and most of the Maxie family and friends, the list of suspects includes financier Sir Reynold Price, a man with "the habit of arrogance."

"The Black Tower"

Part 1: Commander Dalgliesh is shot during a drug raid and an old family friend, a priest, invites Adam to come and stay with him during his convalescence. The priest works at a private nursing home with an eccentric owner. When Dalgliesh arrives, he finds out that his friend has died of apparent natural causes and is invited to stay and help with the priest's belongings. He learns that one of the patients has recently committed suicide and that people at the home have been receiving disturbing notes.

Part 2: Commander Dalgliesh finds it interesting that those who had died either left or promised to leave money to the nursing home. He discovers that the nursing home is almost bankrupt. He also discovers a web of illicit affairs. Dalgliesh begins to understand that there are competing interests in what happens to the nursing home. Some want the home sold and others want it given to a trust who will continue to operate the home. Someone tries to kill the home owner and another patient dies of "natural causes".

Part 3: Commander Dalgliesh is sure that all the deaths are related and not natural but he has not found the common thread. The nursing home owner is in despair because everything he had worked for is crumbling around him. Then there is another suicide. Dalgliesh is determined to solve this mystery.

1989

"A Taste for Death"

Scotland Yard's Adam Dalgliesh is called to investigate when a government minister receives threatening letters. The Minister's own household is a challenge. His exquisite wife makes no secret of her adulterous affair with a fashionable surgeon. His only daughter, deeply involved in left-wing politics, has rejected her Conservative father. He is even resented by his own, strong-willed mother, whose favored son was killed in an IRA terrorist ambush. Dalgliesh has barely started on the case when a series of bizarre deaths turn the informal investigation into an urgent assignment.

1991

"Devices and Desires"

Part 1: Hoping to escape the pressure of his job, Dalgliesh retreats to Larksoken, an isolated northern town where he as inherited a windmill and cottage. His solitude is shattered with a murder and the debate about a local nuclear power plant.

Part 2: The "Whistler," the Norfolk serial killer, has claimed another victim. As the hunt continues, Dalgliesh seeks refuge from the investigation by escaping on a romantic interlude with his neighbor Meg Dennison.

Part 3: Dalgliesh discovers another body that appears to be the work of the "Whistler." Dalgleish suspects that it may be the work of a copycat killer.

Part 4: Following a suicide at the nuclear power plant, a new suspect emerges in the hunt for a killer. Spurred by the development, Dalgleish uncovers fresh evidence which leads him to question his friend Meg Dennison.

Part 5: Crisis and chaos overshadow Dalgliesh's unofficial investigation when a virus strikes the nuclear plant's central computer system. Faced with the possibility that it is a terrorist plot, the director of the plant calls in security services to investigate.

Part 6: Crisis and chaos overshadow Dalgliesh's unofficial investigation when a virus strikes the nuclear plant's central computer system. Faced with the possibility that it is a terrorist plot, the director of the plant calls in security services to investigate.

1993

"Unnatural Causes"

A mutilated corpse, its hands severed at the wrist, is found floating in a dinghy at sea. The hands are found in a package mailed to a man Dalgliesh is investigating in a currency laundering scheme. The investigation leads to a small seaside village where the murdered man lived. Is the murder associated with the money laundering or can the answer be found in a complex web of love, jealousy and potential lines of inheritance? At the same time, issues in Adam's personal life come to a head.

1994

"A Mind to Murder"

In an exclusive English psychiatric clinic where MPs crack up discreetly and movie stars dry out in style, a macabre murder has taken place. But when Scotland Yard's Adam Dalgliesh is assigned to the case, he becomes tangled in a web of political intrigue, blackmail and deceit.

1996

"Original Sin"

Scotland Yard's Adam Dalgliesh is called to the venerable publishing house of Peverell Press to look into a stream of hate mail received by some members of Peverell's Board. When a series of macabre deaths occur, Dalgliesh and his young DI team uncover a snake pit of family rivalry, sexual jealousy and dark secrets. There's a long line of suspects - and a murderer prepares to kill again.

1998

"A Certain Justice"

A brilliant attorney is found stabbed to death in her office. Commander Dalgliesh is called in to investigate. He finds that the victim was extremely unpopular and there is a long list of suspects. There are fellow attorney's whose careers where placed in jeopardy by the victim. There are family members of victims who did not feel they received justice because the slain lawyer was always more concerned with the legal procedures than finding the truth. There is an affair that ended badly. There is the estranged daughter. There are many who are not unhappy that this woman was murdered. But who was unhappy enough to actually kill her?

2004

"Death in Holy Orders"

Note: Martin Shaw as Dalgliesh

Commander Dalgliesh is asked by Sir Alfred Treeves, a successful businessman, to investigate the death of his son, one of the young ordinands of the theological college of St. Anselm's in East Anglia.

2005

"The Murder Room "

Note: Martin Shaw as Dalgliesh

A few days after visiting a small museum with a unique exhibit call The Murder Room, Dalgliesh is called back to investigate the mysterious death of one of the museum's owners. The museum was owned by two brothers and a sister who inherited from their father. The one who wanted to sell the museum is now dead. Dalgliesh discovers that their are several people with a motive. The trail could also lead to high places in the British government.

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Based on the novels of

P. D. James.