ix + 387 pp. A mystery novel by an accomplished writer of the genre, weaving Beowulf storyline elements into a present-day crime drama centering on mysterious deaths at an Anglican seminary that the diocese is considering closing. James's recurring protagonist, Commander Dalgliesh, reads from Heaney's Beowulf in his room, priming readers of the novel to see the Beowulf elements elsewhere in the story:

Dalgliesh usually had little difficulty in getting to sleep, even in an unfamiliar bed. Years of working as a detective had inured his body to the discomforts of a variety of couches and, provided he had a bedside light or a torch for the brief period of reading which was necessary for him before sleep came, his mind could usually let go of the day as easily as did his tired limbs. Tonight was different. His room was propitious for sleep; the bed was comfortable without being soft, the bedside lamp was at the right height for reading, the bedclothes were adequate. But he took up his copy of Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf and read the first five pages with a dogged persistence, as if this were a prescribed nightly ritual instead of a long-awaited pleasure. But soon the poetry took hold and he read steadily until eleven o'clock, then switched off the lamp and composed himself for sleep. (168)

Dalgliesh's reading of Heaney's Beowulf takes place on the night of a deadly attack in the sanctuary that resembles in several ways Grendel's attack on Heorot; and James deftly weaves several Beowulf-inspired details and themes into her mystery plot, indeed making them part of the mystery (which character is to be identified as the monstrous assailant, and which the heroic defender of the hall?).

The novel begins:

It was Father Martin's idea that I should write an account of how I found the body.

I asked, "You mean, as if I were writing a letter, telling it to a friend?"

Father Martin said, "Writing it down as if it were fiction, as if you were standing outside yourself, watching it happen, remembering what you did, what you felt, as if it were all happening to someone else."

I knew what he meant, but I wasn't sure I knew where to begin. I said, "Everything that happened, Father, or just that walk along the beach, uncovering Ronald's body?" (3; italics as in original)

And ends:

The paper caught fire immediately and it seemed that the flames leapt at the papyrus as if it were prey. The heat for a moment was intense and he stepped back. He saw that Raphael had come beside him and was silently watching. Then he said, "What are you burning, Father?"

"Some writing which has already tempted someone to sin and may tempt others. It's time for it to go."

There was a silence, then Raphael said, "I shan't make a bad priest, Father."

Father Martin, the least demonstrative of men, laid a hand briefly on his shoulder and said, "No, my son. I think you may make a good one."

Then they watched together in silence as the fire died down and the last frail wisp of white smoke drifted over the sea. (387)

• Kathleen Forni, Beowulf's Popular Afterlife in Literature, Comic Books, and Film (New York: Routledge, 2018), chap. 7.

• John Halbrooks, “P. D. James Reads Beowulf,” in Anglo-Saxon Culture and the Modern Imagination, ed. David Clark and Nicholas Perkins (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010), 183–99.

Not in MO2.

BAM.