Description: When threatening letters arrive at his fashionable London home, prominent Government Minister Sir Paul Berowne calls his old friend Adam Dalgliesh for assistance.
Berowne’s own household is a challenge. His exquisite wife makes no secret of her adulterous affair with a fashionable surgeon. His only daughter, deeply involved in left-wing politics, has rejected her Conservative father. He is even resented by his own, strong-willed mother, whose favored son was killed in an IRA terrorist ambush.
Dalgliesh has barely started on the case when a series of bizarre deaths turn the informal investigation into an urgent assignment.
With characteristic determination Scotland Yard’s enigmatic star detective pursues every possibility, ruthlessly exposing dark secrets and ugly emotions as the case proceeds toward its terrifying and bloody conclusion.
Stars Roy Marsden, Dame Wendy Hiller, Simon Ward, Fiona Fullerton and Penny Downie
Amazon.com: Roy Marsden returns for another of his ever-deepening performances as Inspector Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard, the protagonist hero of a series of much-honored, P.D. James mystery novels. A perfect match of procedural deduction, horrifying but imaginative crimes to solve, and James's familiar embrace of resonant characterization, A Taste for Death finds Dalgliesh investigating twin murders in a London church: one victim a beleaguered, former minister of the Crown and a man of Dalgliesh's favorable acquaintance, the other a homeless man accustomed to finding shelter in the vestibule. Dalgliesh, a perfect and perhaps unique blend of humble compassion and take-no-prisoners probing mind, becomes the thread in a complex tale of multiple motives, seething emotions, unusual suspects, and such puzzling clues as a burnt diary, all in the effort to find an elusive link between two dead men of very different breeding and destinies. --Tom Keogh
Good British Mystery Good Mystery performed by excellent British actors. It gets only 3 stars because of the awful audio. They must have found the original audio equipment used for "The Jazz Singer."
one of the best This along with 'Shroud for a Nightengale' is one of my favorite of the Dalgleish adaptations. The plot is gripping and leaves you always guessing what is and isn't relevant. Marsden is great here -- he shows a range of subtle facial expression that makes one wonder what his character might be thinking. The woman who plays Miskin is my favorite of the many actresses who have played her. In fact the whole casting is excellent and is a notch above many of the other Dalgleish adaptations.
Excellent plot, great acting, clear transfer... Ever wonder how the upper class in London lives? Seems they have family problems to match anyone of any class. Adam Dalgliesh or "AD" as he is known by his staff at New Scotland Yard often finds himself in the middle of an upper class family crises that has resulted in murder. Sometimes the murderer having killed once kills again.
Sir Paul Berowne, a British MP, is an old school mate of Adam Dalgliesh. Berowne contacts Adam for a meeting where he shares his plans to pursue a "higher calling", leave government, and leave his old life behind As Dalgliesh's own father was a Church of England vicar, and Adam considered taking up a similar vocation at one time, it seems natural that Paul confides his plans in him.
However, hours later when the MP is found dead in a local church basement, Dalgliesh is exceeding troubled. Was Berowne apprizing him that he was about to end his life by committing suicide as part of a bizarre ritual associated with his new pursuit? He appears to have been slaughtered by his assailant but offered no resistance. And, what about the "tramp" who appears to have been killed by the same weapon? Did they struggle and kill each other? On the other hand, Berowne had mentioned casually that he had been receiving threatening letters (a not uncommon occurrence for an MP), and that he had a mistress, and that he had told his wife he planned to leave his job and her.
In A TASTE FOR DEATH the murderer kills and kills again. As Dalgliesh closes in, some of the victims experience terrifying moments. By the end of the tale, no less than six deaths are under investigation by New Scotland Yard, and the last few frames are horrifying for one member of Dalgliesh's police team.
The cast of this mystery is loaded with wonderful familiar faces including the late Dame Wendy Hiller, Simon Ward, Fiona Fullerton and Penny Downie.
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