PD James - Devices and Desires (1989)

An Adam Dalgliesh novel

Unabridged

Read by Michael Jayston

Chivers Audio Books (BBC Audiobooks) 1992(?)

Source: audible.com

MP3 48kbps (stereo)

15 hours 41 mins



The excellent Michael Jayston reads PD James' eighth novel to feature the cerebral Commander Adam Dalgliesh of New Scotland Yard.



Synopsis

Commander Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard has just published a new book of poems, and has taken a brief respite from publicity on remote Larksoken headland on the Norfolk coast. But he cannot so easily escape murder. A psychopathic strangler of young women is at large in Norfolk, and getting nearer to Larksoken with every killing. When murder reaches the headland one moonlit night, Dalgliesh finds himself involved in a particularly horrible crime, and in the tangled emotions and motives of the suspects.



From Publishers' Weekly

James sets her 11th novel on Larksoken, a remote windswept headland in Norfolk, where the presence of a huge nuclear energy plant serves as a metaphor for the power of the past to rule over her characters. Commander Adam Dalgliesh of New Scotland Yard, in Larsoken to settle an estate left him at the death of a relative, is drawn into the investigation of a serial killer, the Whistler. Dalgliesh's neighbors include the power station's director, Alex Mair; his elegant sister Alice, a cookbook author; acting administrator - and Alex's former lover - Hilary Robarts; and anti-nuclear activist Neil Pascoe. The next signature killing, of the widely disliked Robarts, turns out to have occurred hours after a young man who firmly establishes his identity as the Whistler commits suicide. The question of who murdered Robarts, then centers around motive. This intricate, layered mystery may be read as parable: we can escape the consequences of our choices, political and personal, no more than we can shed our private histories. This is dark James, plotted with a slight unevenness but utterly faithful to her deeply and sympathetically plumbed characters.



Cheops has posted a BBC radio dramatisation of Devices and Desires: http://www.mininova.org/tor/672358



Other unabridged PD James audiobooks



Original Sin: http://www.mininova.org/tor/850678

Death in Holy Orders: http://www.mininova.org/tor/859876

The Lighthouse: http://www.mininova.org/tor/692381