He writes poetry and solves murders. P. D. James writes mysteries, works in the criminal department of England s Home Office and is female. In Death of an Expert Witness, she does for a forensic science laboratory in East Anglia what Miss Sayers did for Oxbridge and Miss Marsh managed for the London theater world. She fairly wallows in motives technicalities, eccentricities, venom and defeat. All motive, No Alibi Everybody has one reason or another to want Dr. Lorrimer, senior biologist, dead.
Nobody has much of an alibi.
We are, honorably, introduced to the relevant passions before the murder and, skillfully, allowed by the author to listen in on Dalgliesh as he is lied to and ambles toward a resolution. The science is neat. The characters are permitted to be complicated. Ambitions and disappointments in an institutional snakepit are superbly manipulated. The pathological sex is just right.