SOURCE: "Death and Dire Doings?: Time to Call Dalgliesh," in New York Times Book Review, February 2, 1995, p. C17.

In the following review, Lehmann-Haupt complains that James's Original Sin contains too much clutter and irrelevant descriptions.

The touch of symbolism is not gentle in Original Sin, P. D. James's latest mystery featuring Comdr. Adam Dalgliesh of New Scotland Yard. At the story's opening, Mandy Price, a young temporary typist, rides her motorbike to work at The Peverell Press, a venerable London publishing firm situated in a mock-Venetian palace on the Thames called Innocent House.

When Mandy arrives, she is taken upstairs by Claudia Etienne, a senior executive, to fetch a tape recording that needs transcribing. Miss Etienne pushes open the door to the archive room. As the text then reads:

The stink rolled out to meet out to meet them like an evil wraith, the familiar smell of vomit...