Sleep No More
Six Murderous Tales
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5.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
The acknowledged 'Queen of Crime', P. D. James, was a past master of the short story, weaving together motifs of the Golden Age of crime-writing with deep psychological insight to create gripping, suspenseful tales. The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories contained four of these perfectly formed stories, and this companion volume contains a further six, published here together for the first time.
As the six murderous tales unfold, the dark motive of revenge is revealed at the heart of each. Bullying schoolmasters receive their comeuppance, unhappy marriages and childhoods are avenged, a murder in the small hours of Christmas Day puts an end to the vicious new lord of the manor, and, from the safety of his nursing home, an octogenarian exerts exquisite retribution.
The punishments inflicted on the guilty are fittingly severe, but here they are meted out by the unseen forces of natural justice rather than the institutions of the law. Once again, P. D. James shows her expert control of the short-story form, conjuring motives and scenarios with complete conviction, and each with a satisfying twist in the tail.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The selections in this solid second posthumous collection from MWA Grand Master James (after 2016's The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories) explore variations of the theme of looking back on past violent incidents. In "The Yo-Yo," a yo-yo that a septuagenarian played with as a child sparks memories of a murder that occurred while he was in prep school; the tale ends with an ironic twist. In "The Murder of Santa Claus," the recollections of writer Charles Mickledore the creator of an aristocratic sleuth dismissed by critics as "a pallid copy of Peter Wimsey" about a long-ago murder case alternate with those of elderly Det. Insp. John Pottinger. James pokes fun at herself when Mickledore remarks, "I'm no H.R.F. Keating, no Dick Francis, not even a P.D. James." The standout is "The Victim," in which the cuckolded first husband of Princess Ilsa Mancelli, who was a film and TV star before marrying into royalty, plots revenge. James (1920 2014) was just as gifted an author of short stories as she was a novelist.)
Customer Reviews
Sleep No More
An engaging collection of short stories. They were really enjoyable to read with P.D. James usual descriptive literary style