The Private Patient

The Private Patient

infobox Book |
name = The Private Patient
title_orig =
translator =


author = P. D. James
cover_artist =
country = United Kingdom
language = English
series = Adam Dalgliesh #14
genre = Crime, Mystery
publisher = Faber & Faber
release_date = August, 2008
media_type = Print (Hardcover)
pages = 395 pp (hardcover)
isbn = ISBN 978-0-571-24244-3
preceded_by = The Lighthouse
followed_by =

"The Private Patient" is the eighteenth novel by the English crime writer P. D. James and the fourteenth to feature her fictional detective Commander Adam Dalgliesh. It was published by Faber and Faber in August 2008.

Plot Summery

The novel opens with Rhoda Gradwyn, a successful investigative journalist, meeting with her plastic surgeon, George Chandler-Powell. Gradwyn has had a facial scar since her alcoholic father slashed her with a broken bottle for defending her mother in an arguement; she now tells Chandler-Powell she wants it removed because she "no longer has need of it". Gradwyn arranges to have the scar removed at Chandler-Powell's Dorset clinic, Cheverell Manor.

Chandler-Powell asks her to stay overnight at the Manor prior to her operation, to make herself comfortable with the surroundings. Gradwyn meets with a friend, Robin Boynton, who has relatives at the Manor, to discover anything interesting about the place she is going to and the people she will meet there. Boynton decides to book in to the cottage at the Manor to be near Gradwyn and hsi counsins, Candace and Marcus Westhall.

Gradwyn arrives for this visit at the end of November and we are introduced to the team at the Manor. Dean and Kimberly Bostock, a young married couple, work in the kitchen. Flavia Holland is Sister and lover of George Chandler-Powell. Helena Creslett is the daughter of the former owners of the Manor, she once told Chandler-Powell off when he visited as a child, and she is now a kind of housekeeper at the clinic. Candace Westhall lives in Stone Cottage and keeps the books, Lettie assists her. Candace's brother, Marcus, is Chandler-Powell's anesthetist. Sharon, a girl obsessed by a local "witch" burning, does the cleaning in the Manor.

Gradwyn keeps herself to herself, only meeting up with Sharon to be shown the Cheverall Stones, where the fabled burning took place. She entends her stay by one night as she has made a discovery about someone at the Manor, and then leaves to return for her operation in a fortnights time.

At first the local Police arrive, but Commander Adam Dalgliesh and his team, DI Kate Miskin and DS Francis Benton-Smith, are called in by the husband of a worried fellow patient at the clinic.

We arrive back at the Manor just after Gradwyn's successful operation, and she is ensconced in her room. We see and hear from her point of view as her murderer enters the room and strangles Gradwyn to death.

External Links

* [http://www.sundayherald.co.uk/arts/arts/display.var.2446079.0.0.php Interview with P. D. James for "The Sunday Herald" following publication of "The Private Patient"]


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