Murder, The Unique Crime, is a Paradigm of Its Age

The Murder Room by PD James. This is a blog as I read the book.

Dalgliesh's eccentric and endearing old friend runs through some murder cases chronicled at the Dupayne Museum. Conrad Ackroyd's thesis is that murder is a paradigm of its age.

Mrs. Edith Thompson in the Thompson--Bywater case; 1922, Bywater the young lover kills husband. Edith's love letters convicts her.

Dalgliesh's character is introduced by his reaction to the Thompson case. "Even as a boy the case had confirmed him as an abolitionist; had it, he wondered, exerted a subter and more persuasive influence, the conviction, never spoken but increasingly rooted in his comprehension, that strong passions had to be subject to the will, that a completely self-absorbed love could be dangerous and the price too high to pay?"

We learn through Ackroyd that Dalgliesh is seeing a young beautiful woman. Not yet introduced. I wonder if she could inspire a strong passion in Dalgliesh?

And who of the players in this murder has a completely self-absorbed love that is dangerous?

The Wallace case; 1931 wife Julia is found battered to death, husband William Herbert accused and found guilty on circumstantial evidence by a jury that did not like him because he was a cool cucumber. The jury's verdict was later overturned on the grounds that the case was not proved with the certainty necessary to justify a guilty verdict.

Pretty cold, clinical stuff in contrast to the heat of the first murder case.

Ackroyd talks of the Duayne family during the drive. The father and founder, Max (deceased); the sons Marcus, retiring from Civil Service; Neville who garages his E-type Jaguar on the property.

All the motives for murder are covered by the three "L 's": Love; Lust; Lucre: Loathing, says PD James through dalgliesh's thoughts. And the most dangerous is Love.

Hmmmm. Who loves whom? Who is in love with what?