The Black Tower

Its place in Adam Dalgliesh

The Black Tower is book 5 in the Adam Dalgliesh series. It follows Shroud for a Nightingale. It is followed by Death of an Expert Witness. See the full Adam Dalgliesh reading order.

Adam Dalgliesh is a Scotland Yard Commander who is also a published, critically respected poet -- a deliberate pairing that lets P. D. James write murder mysteries with the density and moral seriousness of literary fiction. Across fourteen novels spanning nearly half a century, James sets her cases in tightly closed, institutional worlds -- a forensic science lab, a theological college, a private psychiatric clinic, a publishing house, a remote island retreat -- and uses the murder investigation to expose the…