Cover Her Face
| Author | P. D. James |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Series | Adam Dalgliesh #1 |
| Genre | Crime, Mystery novel |
| Publisher | Faber and Faber |
Publication date | December 1962 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | NA Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
| Followed by | A Mind to Murder |
Cover Her Face is the debut 1962 crime novel of P. D. James. It details the investigations by her poetry-writing detective Adam Dalgliesh into the death of a young, ambitious maid, surrounded by a family which has reasons to want her gone - or dead. The title is taken from a passage from John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi: "Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle; she died young."
Plot summary
This is a typical and largely conventional "country house" murder. Sally Jupp, who knows the aforementioned drug dealer before his untimely demise, is an unmarried mother who, after a spell at a home for "fallen women" finds work as a maid for the aristocratic but financially challenged Maxie family, who have a crumbling house, terminally ill and bedstricken father, and in which internecine strife is rife. After stirring up all around her, she is found strangled. Dalgliesh investigates the murder and tries to piece together who killed whom.
Literary significance and criticism
"Her first detective story, immediately pleasing and impressive. The pace is deliberate, the characterization of the members of an English county family very well done, and the central character of Sally Jupp -- a servant girl with imagination and a love of power -- most unusual but compelling. Insp. Dalgliesh is perhaps too quietly competent in his disclosure of Sally's killer -- and, despite the title, the girl isn't a Duchess of Malfi."[1]
Film and Television Versions
A television version of the novel was produced for Britain's ITV network in 1985. It starred Roy Marsden as Adam Dalgliesh and Kim Thomson as Sally Jupp.
References
- ^ Barzun, Jacques and Taylor, Wendell Hertig. A Catalogue of Crime. New York: Harper & Row. 1971, revised and enlarged edition 1989. ISBN 0-06-015796-8
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