Unnatural Causes 2698719 222753530 2008-06-30T23:02:04Z Andreadesmarais 7380687 {{infobox Book | <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels or Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books --> | name = Unnatural Causes | title_orig = | translator = | image = <!-- prefer 1st edition cover --> | image_caption = | author = [[P. D. James]] | cover_artist = | country = [[United Kingdom]] | language = [[English language|English]] | series = [[Adam Dalgliesh]] #3 | genre = [[Crime novel|Crime]]/[[Mystery novel]] | publisher = [[Faber and Faber]] | release_date = [[1967 in literature|1967]] | media_type = Print ([[Hardback]] & [[Paperback]]) | pages = 236 pp | isbn = NA | preceded_by = [[A Mind to Murder]] | followed_by = [[Shroud for a Nightingale]] }} ''You may be looking for [[Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?|UNNATURAL CAUSES: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?]], a documentary series broadcast on PBS in 2008.'' '''''Unnatural Causes''''' is the title of a [[1967]] [[detective novel]] by [[P. D. James]]. It features her detective [[Adam Dalgliesh]], who happens to be visiting his aunt, Jane Dalgliesh, in Suffolk when the body of a detective novelist, Maurice Seton, is found washed ashore in his own small boat. The death is highly suspicious because his hands are missing, having been removed with a meat cleaver, just as Seton himself had described in a thriller he was beginning to write. However the cause of his death is mysterious; his hands were removed some time after his death. The primary responsibility for the investigation falls on Inspector Reckless, but Dalgliesh conducts his own low-key investigation in support. ==Literary significance and criticism== ''Something of a letdown. The country-house setting and the characterization of the unfortunate criminal are excellently handled, and the powerful ending under rushing waters is both credible and mysterious, but the method of murder as well as its cause is farfetched. Dalgleish has had a tiff with his lover and lets her go out of his life in a psychologically odd instance of inaction. What next?''<ref name="COFC">Barzun, Jacques and Taylor, Wendell Hertig. ''A Catalogue of Crime''. New York: Harper & Row. 1971, revised and enlarged edition 1989. ISBN 0-06-015796-8</ref> - Catalogue of Crime ==References== {{Reflist}} {{Dalgliesh}} [[Category:1967 novels|Unnatural Causes]] [[Category:Novels by P. D. James|Unnatural Causes]] {{crime-novel-stub}}