A review by missbryden
Devices and Desires by P.D. James

3.0

I was irritated at the beginning and actually got more interested as it went on. I do think had I read the audio book as I’d done with previous in the series I would have continued irritated. I thought, as with previous in the series, the author doesn’t like women, has maybe some internalized/institutionalized misogyny.
I know red herrings are a thing in detective novels, but does it have to be mostly red herrings? I did get interested in trying to follow and guess on the ultimate whodunnit but of course much of what was introduced, including new information towards the ends, had little or nothing to do with the ultimate crime. Other information felt like the author had all this knowledge/trivia that she wanted a story to put into.
Definitely pretty depressing overall, and Dalgliesh is not the detective on the case but has just gotten himself wrapped up by repeated proximity to a local crime. There was funny chapter/scene with a one scene character called Jonah.
Sort of spoilers:
SpoilerI kept wondering how old he’s meant to be at this point, when it’s contemporarily set in 1988/1989, and he’s been a senior officer since the first book in 1962. Rickards thinks Dalgliesh might have lost his wife and baby just 12 years before, when I was of the impression it all happened before the series. It could certainly be character error but I thought it would be decades before. The physical heroism seems a younger man’s game - but maybe I’m being ageist where others are misogynist and racist (Meg’s story was confusing: was her big fuss and escape from London over refusing to do racial diversity training when she believed she shouldn’t need to because she’d been teaching racially diverse classrooms for years?). I expected Alex to get a comeuppance but was disappointed - and why was he brought in with Dalgliesh by the MI5 men? And I thought Meg Dennison would turn out a baddie, but apparently she fulfilled the vision various men (at least Rickards and Dalgliesh) had of her. Although what was the bit at the end about remembering the mushroom cloud and the power station’s alarms going off but they’re being impressive and she still felt at home there on the headland.