Hic killer is most often either a supremernetjotist wlio kills for personal gain or satisfaetion,rnor a vengeful Ahab whose angrrnrejeetion of the universal orderrnamounts to blasphemy. I’hus, in somern\as, the nister no’el, vvhieh so oftenrnntili/es stereotpe and struetural formularnalong with a reeurring protagonist forrnthe sake of a stable point of view, isrnsupremeK predietable. The mystery hasrnhad great diffieult, therefore, in beingrnaceepted as am thing but diversion Inrnmodern erities, who have been trained tornlook down their colleetive noses at thern er eoneept of form in art. After all, thernmster has a beginning, a middle, andrnan end, and is preclieated on form andrnstrueture, eonfliet and resolution, hi therneomeutioiial mster nosel, tlie murdererrnwill be found out.rnW hat manv erities have long forgottenrnis the jHirpose of the form. Therninster, like Ckcek tragedy, the playsrnof Shakespeare, or Ameriean Westernrnfilms, is, paradoxiealK, freed by the cryrnconfines of its formula to explore the humanrncondition. The predietable lavoutrnof the storv allows the skilled writer torndeal witii broad themes within the eonfinesrnof tlie novel’s pattern and, in thernend, to affirm some greater truth thanrnthe mere ideiitit of a criminal. As Jamesrnherself has put it. murder is “taken sornserioush ” bv the myster- novelist thatrnthe crime itself, and the determinedrnune()ering of the criminal, serves as a reminderrnto us that murder is a “uniquerncrime,” a crime which has lost some of itsrnformer sense of awesomeness in the veryrnmurderous 20th century, hi a sense, thernimsterv as art propels us back into arnframe of mind lost under the oiLslaughtrnof nioderiiit. “It is reassuring,” sasrnJames, “to tliink there could be a societvrnin which . . . it [murderj is still a unii)ue-rnK dreadful act.’rnIn recent years, some erities liave begunrnto gie mysteries, and P.O. James,rntheir due. James is a skilled craftsmanrnand perceptixe writer who lias donernfor the nivster what John le Carrerndid for the sp no el. I ler characters arernfulK fleshed out human beings, her stonesrnrich in detail, and her prose surjjassesrnthat of many of our pretentious “serious”rnnovelists. Still, much has gone unnoticedrnb the critics who are now praisingrnJames and the nistery novel, in particularrnthe question of the mystery’s resolutionrnand that of the recurring Christianrnimagers of James’s noels. Just what (orrnwhose) unixersal order is being set rightrnby the capture and, presumably, thern]5unisliiiient of the murderer? Moreover,rnI have yet to read a review of a James novelrn(this is her l?th) that eommenfs onrnthe Christian themes and images sornoften inxoked in her mysteries.rnSome of the crime is a mock Venetianrnmansion of some architectural notern(dubbed “Innocent House” by the I9theenturyrnbuilder) standing alongside thern’I’lianics, ancient and majestic witness tornboth the tiiumph and folly of man in thernguise of ancient Romans, medieval Saxonsrnand Normans, and modern bjiglishnien.rnCcrard f’jticnne (the character’srnunusual name may have been borrowedrnfrom 16tli-centurv Bible scholar RobertrnEtienne), the rutlilcss and cliarmingrnmanaging director of a venerable 1.011-rndon publishing house, the Pcvcrell Press,rnhas been murdered, suffocated by gasrnfunics in a closed room, and bizarrelyrnmocked in death; a toy snake has beenrnwrapped around his neck, the gapingrnhead of the serpent stuffed in his mouth,rnlitienne was a man with many enemies: arnjilted lover, a sensitive author rejected byrnthe firm, and ambitious and jealousrncolleagues, one of whom committed suicidernsliortK before his own demise.rnInnocent Mouse, its innocence lostrnlong ago after the suicide (murder?) ofrnthe Pcvcrell Press founder’s wife (literallyrna Kill: she fell from the house’s balcony,rnleaving a bloodstain, the house’s mark ofrnCain, visible on the patio below for yearsrnafterward), serves as a microcosm ofrnJames’s London and the modern woridrnin general, a wasteland of empty andrnfaithless creatures who, when not broodingrno’er the futility and meaninglessnessrnof their ow 11 lives, are busy claw ing theirrnway to the top of the Darwinian heaprnthey lie in, consuming each other like sornmany links in a pitiless world’s foodrnchain. One character, brooding after thernfuneral of a colleague, notes that the religiousrnservice tliat accompanied the burialrnof the deceased was itself a futile andrnemasculated ritual, a rejeetionist denialrnlacking in substance and marked by arn”liturgy rexised to offend no one, includingrnCod.”rnEnter James’s protagonist, ScotlandrnYard’s Adam Dalgliesh, sometime poet,rnson of an Anglican rector, and connoisseurrnof church architecture, who serves asrnJames’s alter ego, a detached but compassionaternobserver of the fallen state ofrnthe wodd, a prophet who reminds therniiovel’s characters not only of sin and thernexistei ice of e il but of the possibility ofrnredemption. Dalgliesh’s role in uncoveringrnsin (including his own), his ponderingrnof the problem of pain (his wife wasrnkilled years eadier in a car accident), andrnhis role as confessor (once again, James,rnlike Le Carre, masterfully uses the vehiclernof interrogation as a device for uncoveringrnmotivation and propelling the storyrnforward to resolution) have allowedrnJames to exploit tlie full potential of thernmystery novel, and his brooding presencernprox’ides Original Sin, as in the best ofrnJames’s deteetive noxels, with a center ofrngravity, a stabilizing factor in a complexrnnarrative. Dalgliesh is the novel’s touchstonern(though he appears less often thanrnin earlier outings), a man living in thernsprawl of modern London, but somehowrnnot o/’it. Where else but in a P.D. Jamesrnmystery novel will the reader find a reeurringrncharacter in popular fiction whornponders the “dying echoes of plainsongrnand the vibration of 1,300 years of mutteredrnprayer” in an ancient chapel beforernquestioning a suspect, or who debatesrnthe concepts of grace, sin, and mercyrnwith a backsliding nun?rnAs James often uses the juxtapositionrnof the modern with the aneient (medievalrnchurches with modern skyscrapers,rnvillages with cities, or, as in Devicesrnand Desires, ancient ruins with a modernrnnuclear power station) to contrast thernAge of Faith with Modernism, the organicrnwith the contrived, humility withrnhubris, and the evils of the past with therneven bleaker present, so she often usesrnthe dignified Dalgliesh as a counterweightrnto his colleagues, in this case arnfeminist subordinate who will not allowrnher love for a man to block her intendedrnsmashing of the “glass ceiling,” and anrnunbelieving Jewish deteetive strugglingrnwith his own self-pity and his estrangementrnfrom the religion of his parents.rnIndeed, the condition of most of therncharacters in the novel is that of perplexedrnguilt: they are suffocated by thernyoke of original sin, but have no idearnwhat to do about it. They feel guilty, butrnoften do not know why. Most seek escapernin eareerism, or in one of the manyrnother pseudoreligions or ideologies byrnwhich modern humans seek to leave thernsinking ship.rnIn the end, as wc expect, the narrativernTo order these books, (24hrs, 365 days)rnplease call (800) 962-6651 (Ext. 5200)rnSEPTEMBER 1995/35rnrnrn