However, I found it a very slow read and very dated despite it being set in the late 1950s/ early 1960s which was when the book was first published. And of those people who attended or did not attend that party, which of them might be the killer in the current time-line.

Maybe the other books were better or maybe I have just outgrown my interest in mysteries, at least the British variety with tea cups, jam jars, jumble sales and small gossipy villages. I was working in London the summer of the year this book was first published but only now have I got round to reading it for the Kindle English Mystery Group. It was rather disappointing to see her new books come out over the years and know I wouldn't read them.His last breath was the technicality which finally and officially severed him from a world with he had once known and loved. All the clichés are there: the stately home, the nerve-ridden war hero, the lower classes kowtowing to the upper, the vicar a sort of go-between in terms of social status. James, who earned the sobriquet “Queen of Crime,” penned 14 Dalgliesh novels, with the last, The Private Patient, appearing in 2008.

James mentions in passing, for instance, that Dalgleish owns a 30-foot sailing boat, a random fact, to be sure. She received honorary degrees from seven British universities, was awarded an OBE in 1983 and was created a life peer in 1991.

Inspector Dalglish is a non-entity so far and the many and various characters introduced up to know are somewhat confusing. The sexual revolution is very close, which will sweep away or, at least, significantly correct the concepts of things allowed and not allowed in the sphere of sex, While good old England is a stronghold of morality, condemning everything that does not fit into the norms.

Her snobbishness is on fine show maintaining class differences via taste (that plastic dog in the window!

The family matriarch Eleanor is nursing her dying husband who is prescribed sleep medication for his restlessness. One character's bedroom is initially described as a big, functional nursery with no personal belongings. As well as the housework and cooking, Mr Maxie is bedridden, so Mrs Maxie employs Sally Jupp, an unmarried mother as a house-parlourmaid.