Coolly brilliant policeman Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard must find her killer among a houseful of suspects, most of whom had very good reason to wish her ill. Cover Her Face is P. D. James''s electric debut novel, an ingeniously plotted mystery that immediately placed her among the masters of suspense.
By A Customer P.D. James' first mystery. Of all her books, this is the one that adheres most closely to the conventions of the Golden Age mysteries of the 1920s, complete with an English country house, a locked-room murder, and a final confrontation between all the suspects and the detective (Adam Dalgliesh) at the very end. Such theatrical, Christie-esque devices are certainly entertaining, though this isn't exactly serious literature, which James usually write..
Sally Jupp is unexpectedly attractive--and an unwed mother in an era when such still carries considerable stigma. After a sterling record at a home for "fallen women," she finds work as a maid for the aristocratic but somewhat impoverished Maxie family, and once installed shows another aspect of her personality: a perverse pleasure in creating unpleasantness for virtually every one who crosses her path. The Maxie family is larg..
