Shroud for a Nightingale

P.D. James (1920-2014) began her writing career at the fairly late age of forty with this procedural series featuring Adam Dalgliesh, a detective (and, in later books, a commander) for the New Scotland Yard police force. James is an excellent writer, and while her plots are slow to develop, her characterization is very good — especially of Dalgliesh, a stoic, cultured, and empathetic detective who gives the stories some real backbone. In Shroud for a Nightingale, the fourth in the series and one of the best, Dalgliesh investigates what appears to be the unrelated deaths of two student nurses at the Nightingale Nursing College.