The Black Tower
Authors: P. D. James
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P. D. JAMES IS
“the greatest living mystery writer” (
People
)
Just recovered from a grave illness, Commander Adam Dalgliesh receives a call for advice from the elderly chaplain at Toynton Grange, an isolated nursing home on the coast of England. But by the time Dalgliesh arrives, it is only to discover that his friend Father Baddeley has mysteriously died, as has one of the patients.
When the bodies begin to pile up, Dalgliesh once again finds his own life at risk as he determines to get to the truth behind his friend's death and unmask the terrible evil at the heart of Toynton Grange.
“The ability to haunt has earned P. D. James the title âqueen of crime.' Long may she reign.”
âCHICAGO SUN-TIMES
“Any ranking of today's best crime writers would surely put Britain's P. D. James at or near the top.”
âTHE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
P. D. JAMES
is the author of twenty books, most of which have been filmed for television. Before her retirement in 1979, she served in the forensics and criminal justice departments of Great Britain's Home Office, and she has been a magistrate and a governor of the BBC. The recipient of many prizes and honors, she was created Baroness James of Holland Park in 1991. In 2000, she celebrated her eightieth birthday and published her autobiography,
Time to Be in Earnest
.
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COVER DESIGN BY CHRISTOPHER LIN
COVER PHOTOGRAPH © JUPITERIMAGES
Praise for
The Black Tower
“A masterpiece.”
âThe London Sunday Times
“Intriguing, suspenseful, full of strange twists ⦠you'll love this one!”
âNashville Banner
“In the heroic tradition of Agatha Christie.”
âTimes Literary Supplement
Praise for P. D. James
“Mystery writers often deploy stereotypes in similar waysâbut not P. D. James. She gives her people fully rounded life, never sacrificing character to plot, and makes deft fun of conversation.”
âNewsweek
“Ms. James is simply a wonderful writer.”
âThe New York Times Book Review
“If we're lucky, there will always be an England and there will always be a P. D. James.”
âCosmopolitan
“One reads a P. D. James novel in something like the spirit that one reads a novel by Zola, Balzac, Thackeray, or Dickens.”
âThe Christian Science Monitor
“James delivers the pace and tensions of a mystery yarn better than any other living writer.”
âPeople
“P. D. James ⦠writes the most lethal, erudite, people-complex novels of murder and detection since Michael Innes first began and Dorothy Sayers left us.”
âVogue
“The best practitioner of the mystery novel writing today.”
âThe Boston Globe
ALSO BY P. D. JAMES
The Private Patient
The Lighthouse
The Murder Room
Death in Holy Orders
Time to Be in Earnest: A Fragment of Autobiography
A Certain Justice
Original Sin
The Children of Men
Devices and Desires
A Taste for Death
The Skull Beneath the Skin
Innocent Blood
Death of an Expert Witness
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman
The Maul and the Pear Tree:
The Ratcliffe Highway Murders, 1811
(with T. A. Critchley)
Shroud for a Nightingale
Unnatural Causes
Cover Her Face
A Mind to Murder
T
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1975 by P. D. James
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This Touchstone trade paperback edition 2001
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