P. D. James's first omnibus volume ["Crime Times Three: 'Cover Her Face', 'A Mind to Murder' and 'Shroud For a Nightingale'"] will make clear why this English writer is cutting such a sure and distinctive way in a crowded field. Her style is what we think of as typically British. Her writing is ample, leisurely and full of loving descriptions of house and countryside. There is, in fact, a certain 19th-century ease to her books, as if she were inviting the reader to settle down near the fire and enjoy a good long read. Her people are educated, voluble and articulate. They speak faultless English; there is no low life in these pages, no conventional heists take place, no cheap killing merely for gain.

"Would you like to see the garden?" a character in "A Mind to Murder" asks Adam Dalgliesh, who is there to question her about...