this was my first experience of PD James. good characters, some sharp dialogue, credible plot up to the pretty implausible deus ex machina ending, but please, P.D, what's with the outdated vocabulary? i had to keep checking the publication date because i was getting confused. It was published in 1994, and characters are still writing on portable typewriters? they have names like Esmé, Marjorie and Velma? The police are "the fuzz"? It really began to annoy me, to the point where the book was damaged by it. if the characters are stuck in the 1950s, then why should I respect the rest of it as being convincing? I'm presuming of course that it wasn't actually set in 1953, but there are references to AIDS and motorbikes and Docklands, so there's surely no excuse for the Esmés and Velma's. An unnecessary flaw that a good editor should have ironed out.