{"id":19465,"date":"2024-03-25T20:09:29","date_gmt":"2024-03-26T00:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=19465"},"modified":"2024-03-25T20:09:29","modified_gmt":"2024-03-26T00:09:29","slug":"a-long-time-dead-by-j-m-dalgliesh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=19465","title":{"rendered":"‘A Long Time Dead,’ by J. M. Dalgliesh"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The other day<\/strong> I reviewed a book by William MacIlvanney, considered a founder of the Scottish \u201cTartan Noir\u201d school of detective fiction. I disagreed with some of the attitudes he expressed, but was highly impressed with his writing. Now I\u2019ve read a book by one of MacIlvanney\u2019s successors, J. M. Dalgliesh \u2013 A Long Time Dead<\/a><\/em>. The writing was good in general (though a misplaced modifier sneaked past the editors), but the world view here was even less to my taste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duncan McAdam grew up on the Isle of Skye, but fled family tensions as soon as he could. Now he\u2019s a police detective in Glasgow, but he\u2019s unpopular both with his colleagues and his bosses. When they get a call that a young woman\u2019s body has been found on Skye, buried and preserved in peat, they send Duncan off to investigate. He has no wish to go \u2013 his mother has dementia and is confined to a home there, and he doesn\u2019t get along well with his sister. But go he must.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dead girl has been easily identified \u2013 she is Isla Matheson, who vanished about twenty years ago and was assumed to have been a runaway. Her body shows no sign of violence. And she seems to have been a popular girl \u2013 no motive for her murder is apparent. Duncan\u2019s investigation will delve deeply into the dark side of island life, uncovering secrets \u00a0that, like the body, have been long concealed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

J. M. Dalgliesh is a good writer. He paints his characters well and crafts effective dialogue. I quite enjoyed reading A Long Time Dead<\/em> \u2013 right up until the solution appeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discussing that solution involves dropping a spoiler into this review \u2013 I\u2019ll try to conceal it, but it won\u2019t be hard to guess. The murderer\u2019s identity and the motive hinge, as in so many modern stories, on the guilt of the one subculture in our society that it\u2019s still OK to stigmatize. Crazy nonconformists who haven\u2019t evolved with the times, who don\u2019t even merit sympathy. Know what I mean?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, A Long Time Dead<\/em> was a pretty good mystery, but I\u2019m done with J. M. Dalgliesh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day I reviewed a book by William MacIlvanney, considered a founder of the Scottish \u201cTartan Noir\u201d school of detective fiction. I disagreed with some of the attitudes he expressed, but was highly impressed with his writing. Now I\u2019ve read a book by one of MacIlvanney\u2019s successors, J. M. Dalgliesh \u2013 A Long Time … Continue reading ‘A Long Time Dead,’ by J. M. Dalgliesh<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[5119,5118,5116],"class_list":["post-19465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-a-long-time-dead","tag-duncan-mcadam","tag-j-m-dalgliesh"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19465"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19466,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19465\/revisions\/19466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}