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Cover Her Face

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Cover Her Face

By: P. D. James
Narrated by: Daniel Weyman
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About this listen

From P.D. James, one of the masters of British crime fiction, comes the debut novel that introduced Scotland Yard detective Adam Dalgliesh. Set against the English countryside, Cover Her Face is a classic murder mystery filled with James's trademark plot twists, intrigue, and suspense.


Though the Martingale manor house has hosted the annual St Cedd's Church fête for generations, this year feels different. On top of organizing stalls and presiding over luncheon, the bishop and the tea tent, Mrs Eleanor Maxie now also has to contend with the news of her son's sudden engagement to the new parlour maid, the sly and sensuous single mother, Sally Jupp.


Sally has quite a reputation as a ruthless social climber, and no one at Martingale seems too happy about the engagement. But the Maxie family barely has time to contend with her wily ways-on the following morning the whole village is shocked by the discovery of Sally Jupp's body.


Investigating the violent death at the manor house, Detective Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh becomes embroiled in the complicated passions beneath the calm surface of English village life.


In Cover Her Face, award-winning P.D. James (author of Death Comes to Pemberley and Children of Men) methodically plots a complex story of family secrets and suspicion. The book was later adapted into a TV miniseries starring Roy Marsden as the inspector protagonist.


Meet the dark and brooding Dalgliesh-a gentleman, a poet, and a gifted detective-and read the novel that launched P.D. James's career as the world's pre-eminent crime writer.

©2015 P. D. James (P)2015 Faber & Faber
Detective Traditional Detectives Mystery Fiction Village Exciting Suspense
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Critic reviews

"A classic story of English rural murder." ( The Times)
"The greatest contemporary writer of classic crime." ( Sunday Times)
"There are very few thriller writers who can compete with P.D. James at her best." ( Spectator)

What listeners say about Cover Her Face

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A Brilliant Story

A great read = full of excitement and
Thrills.
I have listened to it twice will listened
to it again.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Modern Agatha Christie with psychological portraits of possible murderers.

I have enjoyed my first P. D. James novel. Village characters with stylistic echoes of Jane Austen and Agatha Christie and a traditional plot development.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

good reads

I am re visiting PDJames as 2 series back on TV.enjoyed the book, didnt for 1 minute guess who the guilty person was, almost a first. also enjoyed last few words of final chapter.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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Good story, excellent whodunnit

I struggle with James on audiobooks, but with this one a little less than most.


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it's early

This is an early P D James book and as such is interesting.
All the features we expect and love are here, a closed community of an upper class family in the loved old home, a few working class characters. A introduction by the end of which you want to murder the victim as do all the others in the story.
The story moves along and it looks like all of them have killed her, but in the finale Dalglish declares the murder to have been committed by.......

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18 people found this helpful

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Cover Her Face

Good story, but a bit dated now. Definitely a product otherwise decade in which it was written.

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1 person found this helpful

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Excellent

Author and narrator are exactly the reason I signed up to Audible. Perfect in every way. PD James has such a wonderful command of the English language and Daniel Weyman captures her tone so perfectly.

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A good crime story

The writing style is exquisite and the narrator Daniel Weyman is very pleasant to listen to. The story is a good crime mystery going back to the post war times, if you are a fan of Agatha Christie, you are bound to like the story, but written in a different style. I found the story a bit sad, as class prejudice and reserved manner is what ultimately caused the early demise of a young woman. The victim was also portrayed as ''not a very nice person'', when in fact this was a young woman who refused to submit to being lowered, mistreated and discriminated against due to old prejudice over the position of women in society.

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9 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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Good story very well performed

I enjoyed the way the plot developed with an easy pace and like all good crime novels I didn't guess who the killer was. The narrator was excellent blending in with the style and pace of the story so well.

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1 person found this helpful

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Nice easy listen.

Lovely soft voice from the presenter and a good story line. Took a lot of concentration to get into but once I knew each of the character I thoroughly enjoyed it.

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