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Dalgliesh cover her face5/24/2023 Deborah is his sister, a young widow who also lives at Martingale and has no discernible occupation. The “he” in this passage is Stephen Maxie, heir to the Martingale estate and surgeon in training at a London hospital. Back in his childhood old Nannie had decided that a hot milk drink last thing at night would help to banish the terrifying and inexplicable nightmares from which, for a brief period, he and Deborah had suffered. It was Martha with the nightly hot drinks. There was the sound of slow, careful footsteps and then a knock on the door. I can readily understand a certain impatience being evoked by James’s extremely measured prose style: Although I’ve read it before – some years ago- I did not remember who the perpetrator was. I raced through the novel as though it were an up to the minute thriller. in fact, do that for some contemporary readers. You would think that the diction would call attention to itself in an exasperating way. Here is a novel written in 1962 that reads as if it were written in 1862. Augat 4:25 pm ( Mystery fiction, The British police procedural)
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