Death in Holy Orders: An Adam Dalgliesh Mystery: 11

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Er, no, Ms James, this isn't 'hounding' but reporting a crime that the church would rather have covered up. Anselm's, a small theological college on a lonely stretch of the Anglian coast, so isolated that a fallen tree on the only road to the college can effectively block all access to it.

The son of a parson, and having spent many happy boyhood summers at the school, Dalgliesh is the perfect candidate to look for the truth in this remote, rarified community of the faithful–and the frightened.When the body of a theology student is found on a desolate stretch of coast in East Anglia, his wealthy father demands that Scotland Yard should re-examine the verdict of accidental death. Dalgliesh had visited the college as a boy and so heads off to see whether the death was an accident, or something more suspicious. The only main theme one can pull from this rather pretentious little novel is that pigs do not stink. Instead, gazing out to sea, accepting that in the end nothing really matters and that all we have is the present moment to endure or enjoy, I felt at peace. I was just googling to remind myself who wrote GG and scanning down the results that are all about the tv series and don't mention the author (so far) when I saw that it was Euros Lynn who directed GG's Burning Man story (and possibly others, then) - he's the guy who directed Torchwood's Children of Earth too!

I suppose I was sitting in a kind of trance, because I didn't see or hear the three approaching figures until there was the loud crunch of shingle and they had almost reached me. D. James as a novelist: the sensitive evocation of place, a complex and credible mystery, respect for forensic detail, and the tension of a plot that never flags. We have a good number of suspects and motives, but it was difficult not to feel that this included too many of the author's own personal views, and excuses, for both the characters and the Church.It also turns out that as a child, his father being a parson, that Dalgliesh spent time at St Anselms and it becomes somewhat a visit into his past. It doesn't seem right working at the college, taking money from them, accepting all their kindness and never attending any of the services in the church.

All the makings of a simultaneous equation type of crime, which is a staple of British detective fiction. The author is also able to evoke an atmosphere of tension and mystery which supports the main story superbly well. That is why Archdeacon Crampton had to die, and why the novels of P D James possess the special charm of fading memories. Other visitors come to the college on the weekend of his arrival, not all of them with benign intent.The often irrelevant though always compelling asides are almost invariably evocations of old England. I chose it as I've see the 2 part tv drama starring Martin Shaw which is, in its own right, a very good program and keeps quite close to book with only a few minor differences. You can always tell the characters you can trust in the story because they are the ones who like him the most. Like many in the series, this is set in an isolated, rural community - in this case, Saint Anselm's - an Anglo-Catholic theological college. While guest editor of the Today programme in 2009, she memorably took the BBC director-general Mark Thompson to task over the corporation's failings.