A Taste For Death

In the small vestry of St Matthew's, Paddington, two bodies lie in a welter of blood, their throats cut with gaping precision. One is a local tramp, the other an ex-Minister of State.

Adam Dalgliesh finds himself faced with the most confused and convoluted case of his career. Why was Sir Paul Berowne sleeping in this dingy vestry shortly before his death? What exactly happened when a girl was drowned at a Thames bathing party? What connects an elderly spinster whose life revolves round St Matthew's, the pathetic waif she befriends, Berowne's embittered brother-in-law, and his estranged daughter Sarah, already deeply involved in revolutionary politics? Was there any link between the deaths of three women all close to Berowne?

In reaching the answer Dalgleish follows a trail from a Soane mansion in Kensington to the sourest stretches of a London canal, from the expense-account luxury of the Black Swan to a siege off Holland Park Avenue. And finally, after some heart-stopping hours, to the great empty church where it all started.

A Taste for Death is P. D. James's finest achievement yet.