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Faber & Faber/Allen & Unwin, new edition March 2006
Reviewed by Sally Roddom
Nightingale House is where a group of third year student nurses live while
they learn the art of nursing. During a routine inspection of the nursing
school by the General Nursing Council a horrible death occurs. One of the
students, Heather Pearce, who is playing the part of the patient during a
demonstration, is internally fed bathroom disinfectant instead of milk and
dies thrashing on the floor in front of a classroom. Jo Fallon was
rostered to be the patient; however, she was taken ill at the last minute
and Heather Pearce was a substitute. Was the victim supposed to be Fallon?
A few days later, another nurse is found dead in her bed. This time Jo
Fallon is the victim, and poison is the method. Chief Superintendent Adam
Dalgliesh is called in to solve the murders.
Nightingale House is a great setting for a murder; it is surrounded by
large trees, with a dark road thickly lined by trees leading from the
hospital to the nurses' home. The house itself is a Victorian monstrosity
described by the author as "red bricked, castellated, overly ornate, with four huge
turrets". This is one of P. D. James' earlier works, and as she was a nurse
during the WWII she is able to depict the life of a nurse from personal
experience. The pecking order within the hospital hierarchy is described
beautifully. Being an early work, it makes it possible to see how James
started to develop her trademark style of allowing the reader to see why
all the main suspects had a reason to kill, but SHROUD FOR A NIGHTINGALE
doesn't let us into the mind of the suspects like she has with her later
books. Dalgliesh is not quite as developed as a character as he is in
later books, but the basics are there. I love P.D. James's attention to
detail – her descriptions bring the locations vividly to mind. There are
lots of red herrings – I changed my mind a couple of times before I got to
the end only to find I wasn't even close. She never fails to produce
clever, unexpected solutions, and a dramatically satisfying ending, and
this novel is no different.
Feb 2007 review originally published on Murder & Mayhem
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