Adam Dalgliesh

Adam Dalgliesh (pronounced: Dallgliisch) is the protagonist in 14 novels by the British writer PD James . He also appears as a supporting character in two other crime novels with the private detective Cordelia Gray. The falls take place in the present. Dalgliesh first appeared in Cover her face in 1962 .

Fictional life

Adam Dalgliesh works for the Metropolitan Service at New Scotland Yard in London, first ( Cover her face ) as Chief Inspector, then ( A mind to murder ) as Superintendent . He is Chief Superintendent from Shroud for a Nightingale . From The black tower he is the commander .

He is the son of an Anglican parish priest in Norfolk . His wife and son died in his birth. Since then he has lived alone in a flat on the Thames in Queenshithe. His only relative - she still appears in the early novels - is his aunt Jane Dalgliesh. After her death, he inherits her property on the Norfolk coast.

He began a relationship with Deborah Riscoe in Cover her face . It ends in Unnatural causes .

In Death in Holy Orders , Dalgliesh meets Emma Lavenham, a researcher at Cambridge University . The marriage with her is at the end of the last novel The private patient 2008.

Adam Dalgliesh writes poems privately that have been published several times. He is considered extremely reserved and not very communicative. Unable to avoid the evil people do to one another but unable to find an explanation for it, he is an overt agnostic. At the same time, however, he is unhappy with this choice, which he has made for himself.

Regardless of his agnosticism , Dalgliesh moves in numerous situations in a Christian environment of churches or ecclesiastical institutions, often in a closer relationship with clergy or members of the church.

He was previously a practicing Anglican Christian until the tragic death of his wife and son. Due to his origins and upbringing, he is also thoroughly familiar with theological questions, the understanding of faith, the language and the religious practices and rituals of the Anglican Church. Comparable to GK Chesterton's figure of Father Brown , Dalgliesh often appears in the fictional world of PD James Dalgliesh in a kind of double role as a detective and a "clergyman" who has a certain understanding of the crime that has taken place and who willingly "confess" the perpetrator hopes for forgiveness and redemption. In contrast to the figure of Father Brown, Dalgliesh, as a detective, proceeds extremely rationally or reason-oriented in solving his criminal cases and looks for factual evidence or connections for his reasoning based on logical conclusions.

According to PD James' own statements, she has also given Dalgliesh those character traits that she herself admires: courage without recklessness and high intelligence as well as sensitivity and compassion, but without sentimentalism.

Dalgliesh is considered extremely reserved and not very communicative. He's tall, dark, and overall handsome. In some respects he represents the type of the classic "gentleman detective", as he is known from Agatha Christie or Dorothy Sayers from the "golden age" of crime fiction; In the continuation of the Dalgliesh series, however, PD James increasingly individualizes her protagonist and increasingly paints a more psychologically complex character image of her literary figure, which clearly sets it apart from the investigative figures of conventional detective stories .

Employee

His first partner, in Cover her face and A mind to murder, is DS Martin. DS Masterson is his associate at Shroud for a Nightingale . He then worked with DCI Massingham, who gave up his job when he inherited the title after his father's death and was promoted to the House of Lords. Kate Miskin (most recently DI) is Dalgliesh's permanent employee, with changing colleagues: DI Daniel Aaron, DI Piers Tarrant, DS Francis Benton-Smith.

Detective novels with Adam Dalgliesh as the protagonist

Cover her face , 1962 (One game too many)

A mind to murder , 1963

Unnatural causes , 1967 (An Unexpected Admission)

Shroud for a Nightingale , 1971 (Death in a White Bonnet)

The Black Tower , 1975 (The Black Tower)

Death of an expert witness , 1977

A taste for death , 1986 (The aftertaste of death)

Devices and desires , 1989 (intent and desire)

Original sin , 1994 (Who builds his house on sin)

A certain justice , 1997 (What is good and bad)

Death in holy orders , 2001 (Death in a holy place)

The Murder Room , 2003 (In the Murder Room )

The Lighthouse , 2005 (Where there is light and shadow)

The private patient , 2008 (A flawless death)

literature

Jo Ann Sharkey, Theology in Suspense: How the detective fiction of PD James provokes theological thought . Dissertation at the Scottish University of St Andrews 2010. (Published online in 2011 as a PDF file [3] .)
Erlene Hubly: "Adam Dalgliesh: Byronic Hero." . In: Clues 3 (autumn / winter 1982), pp. 40-46.

Individual evidence

↑ See Dennis Porter: PD James. In: Mystery and Suspense Writers, The Literature of Crime, Detection, and Espionage , Vol. 1, ed. by Robin W. Winks, New York: Charles Scriber's Sons, 1998, pp. 541-556, and Jo Ann Sharkey, Theology in Suspense: How the detective fiction of PD James provokes theological thought . Dissertation at the Scottish University of St Andrews 2010, p. 96 ff. (Published online in 2011 as a PDF file [1] ).
↑ See PD James: Talking And Writing 'Detective Fiction' . On: National Public Radio , published on December 22, 2009. Retrieved on April 24, 2020. James comments on her detective figure as follows: "I gave him [Adam Dalgliesh] the personal qualities I very much admire," [.. .] "I made him courageous but not foolhardy, very intelligent, sensitive and compassionate, but not sentimental."
↑ See in detail Jo Ann Sharkey, Theology in Suspense: How the detective fiction of PD James provokes theological thought . Dissertation at the Scottish University of St Andrews 2010, pp. 96 - 123. (Published online in 2011 as a PDF file [2] ). See also Bernard Benstock: The Clinical World of PD James. In: Twentieth Century Women Novelists . Edited by Thomas F. Staley, Barnes and Noble Books, Totowa, New Jersey, 1982, pp. 104–129, here p. 112.

[1] See Dennis Porter: PD James. In: Mystery and Suspense Writers, The Literature of Crime, Detection, and Espionage , Vol. 1, ed. by Robin W. Winks, New York: Charles Scriber's Sons, 1998, pp. 541-556, and Jo Ann Sharkey, Theology in Suspense: How the detective fiction of PD James provokes theological thought . Dissertation at the Scottish University of St Andrews 2010, p. 96 ff. (Published online in 2011 as a PDF file [1] ).

[2] See PD James: Talking And Writing 'Detective Fiction' . On: National Public Radio , published on December 22, 2009. Retrieved on April 24, 2020. James comments on her detective figure as follows: "I gave him [Adam Dalgliesh] the personal qualities I very much admire," [.. .] "I made him courageous but not foolhardy, very intelligent, sensitive and compassionate, but not sentimental."

[3] See in detail Jo Ann Sharkey, Theology in Suspense: How the detective fiction of PD James provokes theological thought . Dissertation at the Scottish University of St Andrews 2010, pp. 96 - 123. (Published online in 2011 as a PDF file [2] ). See also Bernard Benstock: The Clinical World of PD James. In: Twentieth Century Women Novelists . Edited by Thomas F. Staley, Barnes and Noble Books, Totowa, New Jersey, 1982, pp. 104–129, here p. 112.