The Mistletoe Murder: And Other Stories

Praise for the work of P. D. James:

"P. D. James is the undisputed grande dame of the modern mystery."
--The Boston Globe

"P.D. James is simply a wonderful writer."
--The New York Times Book Review

"The Queen of Crime."
--Los Angeles Times

"There are very few thriller writers who can compete with P.D. James at her best"
--The Spectator

"[The] genre's most talented practitioner ever."
--The New York Times

"The greatest contemporary writer of classic crime."
--Sunday Times

Four previously uncollected stories from one of the great mystery writers of our time--swift, cunning murder mysteries (two of which feature the young Adam Dalgliesh) that together, to borrow the author's own word, add up to a delightful "entertainment."

The newly appointed Sgt. Dalgliesh is drawn into a case that is "pure Agatha Christie." . . . A "pedantic, respectable, censorious" clerk's secret taste for pornography is only the first reason he finds for not coming forward as a witness to a murder . . . A best-selling crime novelist describes the crime she herself was involved in fifty years earlier . . . Dalgliesh's godfather implores him to reinvestigate a notorious murder that might ease the godfather's mind about an inheritance, but which will reveal a truth that even the supremely upstanding Adam Dalgliesh will keep to himself. Each of these stories is as playful as it is ingeniously plotted, the author's sly humor as evident as her hallmark narrative elegance and shrewd understanding of some of the most complex--not to say the most damning--aspects of human nature. A treat for P. D. James's legions of fans and anyone who enjoys the pleasures of a masterfully wrought whodunit.