Original Sin is another of the Adam Dalgliesh mysteries, written by P.D. James in 1998. The first death that occurs is a suicide at Innocent House, home of The Peverell Press, Britain's oldest book publisher. The death that sets the mighty wheels of the British constabulary in motion is the murder of the newly ensconced publisher, Gerard Etienne. He is murdered about 150 pages into the book-the point of those pages seems to be to show what a terrible place to work the Peverell Press was and how many people had good reason to want Etienne dead. There are other murders in the story, too. Adam Dalgliesh may figure things out, but he never actually seems to stop anything bad from happening.

It's a peculiar book. It was a New York Times Bestseller in its time, so somebody-a lot of somebodies-must actually like it. I just cannot understand why.

To be fair, there are passages in Original Sin that are lush and beautiful, and much of the prose would be pleasing if there were only some point to it. Some of the characters are interesting. As in all the other P.D. James books I've read, not one character is actually attractive or has a fulfilling or developed life, and nobody is happy or vibrant, but some of the characters are actually passionate about some things. And some of those things are important or interesting, which made a nice change.

Strangely, this is untrue of the detective force.

One hopes that James has misrepresented Scotland Yard. The three main detectives are portrayed as relentlessly self-absorbed. Adam Dalgliesh is or was a poet in his spare time, likes to walk around in churches or on sea shores, says a few things that are insightful and kind, and drives his Jaguar "competently." He worries a lot about his own, and other people's privacy, and he notes the irony of his occupation as inspector, where he is forced to pry into other people's privacy, several times. Considering that this is "an Adam Dalgliesh mystery," one might expect a more developed character.

The other detectives seem to be still trying, without much success, to figure out how to talk to their mothers or boyfriends. They do a lot of grunt work, whine a lot about the justice system, worry about their apartments and their careers, and discuss many pointless leads. The real mystery in this series of detective stories is how they ever figure anything out at all. They do, sometimes, but it is almost never clear how they manage.

The book reads with some pace, and the plot is interesting, for the latter half of the book. The identity of the killer mostly becomes clear to the reader because of James' tendency to shift personae and to relate, on occasion, the thoughts of the dying victims. They never go so far as to name the killer in their thoughts, but there are clues. It seems like a clumsy rhetorical device to allow the reader to uncover the mystery using clues unavailable to the detectives, but that was the only way it was going to happen. The detectives themselves are utterly clueless until the final pages.

I found this book unsatisfying for the most part despite its occasional charms. My dissatisfaction with the ending of the book goes further than that, though. Inspector Daniel Aaron is Jewish. He makes a few comments that reflect some identification with the Jewish people, and he has some "issues" with his "Jewish mother" (his term, not mine). In the final scenes of the book, however, the murders turn out to have their roots in the Nazi extermination of Jews-the murderer is avenging some particular deaths. Suddenly Aaron is overtaken by sympathy to vengeance and his Jewish identity, and he moves to protect the killer. Even though the killer was not targeting the perpetrator himself, but his children.

I do not say it could not happen, although I believe that it is extremely unlikely for a policeman to shirk his duties so spectacularly and with so little reflection. I have also never heard of any Jewish people attempting to avenge the deaths of their loved ones on the family of the Nazi perpetrators, and in this case the "original sin" was committed not even by a Nazi or even a collaborator, but by a part of the French underground resistance. One might be able to see the personal motive for vengeance, but the connection to any rational Jewish vengeance is tenuous at best. P.D. James certainly does not explain it to my satisfaction, anyway, and I found the whole portrayal of Aaron and his family relations offensive, his dereliction from duty shocking, grotesque, and inexplicable. Aaron's reasoning, such as it is, is so flippant and juvenile that it raises the question of whether James is antisemitic.

Inspector Dalgliesh has figured out the murders-it's not clear how-just in time to fly a helicopter to the place of the final showdown. After it has occurred. All Dalgliesh does is briefly note Aaron's failure to arrest the criminal or to prevent his escape and then get back on the helicopter and fly away. They all assume, without even attempting to verify, that the murderer has succeeded in killing himself. The reader is left to speculate on the consequences to Inspector Daniel, but it seems unlikely that he will reappear in another book as an inspector. Again, one can only hope that P.D. James' version of Scotland Yard is off the mark.

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