Other editions of book A Mind to Murder

A piercing scream, shattering the evening calm, brings Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh hurrying from his literary party to the nearby Steen Psychiatric Clinic, where he discovers the body of a woman sprawled on the basement floor, a chisel thrust through her heart. As Dalgliesh probes beneath the apparently unruffled calm of the clinic, he discovers that many an intrigue lies hidden behind the Georgian terrace's unassuming façade. Professionally, he has never known the taste of failure. Now, for the first time, he feels unsure of his own mastery as he battles to unmask a cool killer who is proving to be his intellectual equal, and who is poised to strike again.

On the surface, the steen Psychologist Clinic was one of the most eminent institutions in London. But when its administrative head was found with a chisel in her hear and a weird wooden phallic symbol in her arms, the terrifying truth began to emerge. In the midst of explosive mixture of psychiatry, sex, and drugs, the unenviable task of analyzing the clues fell to the superintendent Adam Dalgliesh...clues that would lead Dalgliesh to a diabolically cunning killer bent on proving that the first slaying was no Freudian slip in a maddening maze of murder.

In celebration of P. D. James's 90th birthday, Vintage Canada is thrilled to reissue the grand dame of detective fiction's much-loved and critically acclaimed backlist in trade paperback. When the administrative head of the Steen Psychiatric Clinic is found dead with a chisel in her heart, Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard is called in to investigate. Dalgliesh must analyze the deep-seated anxieties and thwarted desires of patients and staff alike to determine which of their unresolved conflicts resulted in murder.