There are a number of good things to be said about … P. D. James, but that she is a "new Agatha Christie" is not one of them…. I'm not even sure if James is a "queen of crime," as a further bit of well-meaning puffery proclaims her. However, she is without doubt one of the genre's noblewomen, and if there's anyone her oeuvre does call to mind, it's a fine author whose own place at court is secure: the late Elizabeth Mackintosh, or Josephine Tey….
To my way of thinking, what keeps both James and Tey just beneath the throne, as it were, is their good taste. They both lack that slight edge of eccentricity that enabled Christie to dream up Poirot, Dorothy Sayers (whom James claims as an influence) to concoct Peter Wimsey, or Margery Allingham to delineate Albert Campion. Tey's Alan Grant and James's Adam Dalgliesh are a pair of handsome, brave, true, and intelligent Scotland Yard detectives; one wouldn't kick them out of bed and yet … even though Dalgliesh is a published poet who's won critical acclaim, one can't help having a fond yearning for Poirot's less intellectually taxing vegetable marrows or Lord Peter's languid babble about incunabula. Lovable idiosyncrasies command a space of their own and have a staying power unmatched by characters who make do without.
Michele Slung, "Midsummer Night's Scream: The 10 Best Whodunits: 'Crime Times Three'," in Ms. (© 1979 Ms. Magazine Corp.), Vol. VIII, No. 2, August, 1979, p. 31.
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