This was a challenging book for me. It took three tries to get past the first 50 pages and in some ways, I struggled through the whole thing. I now feel like, "That was well-worth reading but thank God it's over!"

What I did like: the characterization. I very much liked the detective and his female partner. The (oh, so many) characters were individualized and believable. Their actions followed from their characters and so the plot was logical. It's amazing to me how James wound up so many loose ends of a very complex plot, and that I felt satisfied with the resolution. And the book did have meaning. For a mystery, that's impressive.

But it was tedious. Something about the style (or plot, or theme?) irked me and made it difficult to digest. I'm having trouble putting my finger on it. Maybe the characterization was actually overdone. Or again, maybe there were just too many characters, all of whom were real, fully fleshed-out people that I had to process. I usually skim descriptive prose but James made me really visualize everything and that was exhausting (while impressive). The theme was very dark but that usually doesn't bother me. It was intense from beginning to end...again, usually something I like, but here it felt like too much. I think it was too long but I don't know what I would cut.

I would recommend trying this author if you like mysteries and want something deeper than pulp fiction. I will probably try one more just to see if my problem was this particular plot.

This is a deliciously, slow book.....everything is described to great detail. Normally, I'd find the slowness and detail boring - but something about the way PD James writes makes it work. Suddenly, about 15% from the end, the tempo changes....you know who the murderer is and the 'race against time' starts. One to savour as you're reading.

James does make her attempt to address the particular challenges of women in the police force, as professionals, and in less satisfying social roles, the widow, the socialite, the beauty, the servant.

I am reading through the Dagliesh series by P.D. James and I really loved A Taste for Death. The plot was intricate with multiple emotions running through it. The handling of the religious themes was well done and balanced. The victim had recently had a religious experience and it caused him to make extreme changes in his life leading to his murder.

Dagliesh and his team work tirelessly through interviews with large cast of suspects. Sorting through lies and half-truths, many spun with some emphasis on class consciousness that seems to work its way into many of the Dagliesh books. Political issues, ageism, the plight of the “sandwich generation”, sexism, religion, and child welfare agencies all garner some type of treatment in this outing. An excellent mystery read with many subplots running beneath the surface adding to the depth of the story and the character’s lives.

An engaging mystery--as always.

Back when my cable company had the wonderful Ovation channel, I watched an hour long show from the 70s about Agatha Christie. Not because I like Christie; I don't but because as an English major, I felt obliged to watch it (does anyone else feel this way?). One of the people interviewed on the show was P.D. James. Her comments about Christie vocalized why I didn't like Christie (I couldn't quite explain why I didn't like her). Because of this, I picked up A Taste for Death at a used book sale.

A Taste for Death isn't James' best book. I think The Murder Room, for instance, is far better. It is still a good book with wonderful characters.

An absolutely fantastic mystery. P.D. James delivers it all - an intriguing premise, believable characters, great writing and a few unexpected twists. Definitely a must-read for any fan of the genre.

I first heard of P. D. James when I was at a bookstore and picked this massive book I'd never heard of from a shelf to look at it. When I saw it was a detective novel, my first reaction was: how the hell could a mystery novel be like 600+ pages? How could it even be possible to sustain the level of mystery and tension for that long a page count? It was just weirdly inconceivable to me at that point, but interesting nonetheless.

Anyway, when I started reading James properly I did it in chronological order -- kind of out of my fear of long books, but also because I thought it'd be interesting to track the growth of her ambition from novel to novel. And I'm glad I did, because each book has been getting better and better. But now I decided to take a leap forward in the series and tackle the longest one yet, a novel truly of her peak mature period.

And it's brilliant. An absolute masterpiece.

Every qualm I had all that time ago about mystery being sustained for so long a plot has been answered, because the plot isn't even that long -- it's all about the detail. James is not just a phenomenal crime writer, but also a phenomenal novelist full stop in the astounding levels of attention she gives absolutely everything. There is literally no character in the entire story, no matter how minor, who doesn't have an incredibly richly drawn backstory or personal character, done even in just a few lines. Every setting is as depthful as if you've been there yourself. The prose is verbose and literate but never oppressive. And the plot is so well-maintained and sustained that the page count flies by like nothing.

If you're reared on American or hardboiled crime like I was you might find the level of detail distracting or even kind of boring (and let's just say I'm really glad I didn't start with this book either -- my reaction a year or two ago might've been a lot different). But I was just so drawn into the world of the story that there were hardly any digressions to me at all. Everything had a purpose and every turn of the story felt natural.

If I had one criticism it might be that the reveal of the mystery doesn't quite pay off the level of intrigue that had been built up over the preceding 600 pages (and I touched on this in my last James review too that as a mystery writer she's not quite as adept at crafting a truly surprising twist reveal as many of her peers), but that's only a judgement put up against the confines of its genre. Stories are relative, not absolute. And as a story, and as a piece of literature, this was truly near perfect for me. Friggin masterpiece of its class.

It took me an abnormally long time to read this book. It was quite good, just really dense. I guess I'm in the mood for fluff right now.

This was the first Dalgliesh novel I ever read many many moons ago when it first came out in French in the late 1980s. I remembered some of the plot, not much. I did remember the melancholy and the almost depression like mood of the novel. I read this while recovering from being very sick. Not the best situation but James is a master at storytelling and you follow Dalgliesh and his acolytes through the mucky waters of the murder or suicide of a former MP. James doesn't shy away from the end game of her storyline. That's one of the reasons I love her storytelling so.

Aristocrats, what we would call now bobo revolutionaries, people struggling with poverty and loneliness, individuals who strive to be better than their karma. All of that and a very good murder too. Can't ask for anything else.