Mark Yelland, whose research lab had been criticized for using animals as test subjects. Raimund Speidel, whose beef with Oliver goes back to World War II. The two have been snatching some snuggle time, and daddy did not approve. That guarantees a cast of VIPs for "The Lighthouse,'' as well as a few lower- and middle-class people to do the serving and paperwork.Īmong the people whose lives might have been improved by smacking Oliver on his bonk and dangling him off the lighthouse parapet are his own daughter, Miranda and his copy editor, Dennis Tremlett. Not my personal cup of tea, old chaps, but be assured that James fans will enjoy this classic Dalgliesh tale that takes place on a rocky resort island off the coast of Old Blighty, with a limited number of suspects, all of whom seem to be living lives of quiet desperation under the heel of the repressive British class system, and all of whose lives were probably improved by the death of Nathan Oliver, a famous but obnoxious novelist whose body has been found hanging from the lighthouse of the title.Ĭombe Island is an isolated resort meant for use by people who "undertake the dangerous and arduous business of exercising high responsibility in the service of the Crown and of their country, whether in the armed forces, politics, science, industry or the arts, and who require a restorative period of solitude, silence and peace.'' No quick payoffs in a James novel, but days, perhaps weeks of leisurely reading. Among actors, Owen Wilson couldn't get it out of his mouth for Anthony Hopkins, another Oscar would be delivered. But if read in an English accent (saying "shed-u-elled" instead of "sked-yuled") then the tongue enjoys a rollicking good time. That is the first sentence of James' latest mystery, "The Lighthouse.'' Read by impatient Americans in their own accents, boredom is, if not guaranteed, at least promised. "Commander Adam Dalgliesh was not unused to being urgently summoned to non-scheduled meetings with unspecified people at inconvenient times, but usually with one purpose in common: he could be confident that somewhere there lay a dead body awaiting his attention.'' Or, at least, thinking to ourselves in British accents, if proximal loved ones complain about the noise. James for Americans comes in reading it out loud to ourselves in British accents.
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