This is a literate and not unpromising first novel, but modeled firmly upon the detective story of 30 years ago at its dullest. . . . When I keep urging a return to the formal detective story, this is not what I mean. She takes all the time in the world to establish her plot, her people and her locale.
False clues are liberally seeded.
The author goes into the background of the characters. Some are literate in the best British tradition. James is an exceedingly good writer, and her detective, Adam Dalgliesh, is one of the more unusual ones in action today. Marsh managed for the London theater world. She fairly wallows in motives technicalities, eccentricities, venom and defeat.