What doyouthink?
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218 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
But he lingered himself for a few more minutes in the library. He had a tantalising and irrational feeling that somewhere, and very recently, he had seen a clue to Seton’s death, a fugitive hint which his subconscious mind had registered but which obstinately refused to come forward and be recognised. This experience was not new to him. Like every good detective, he had known it before. Occasionally it had led him to one of those seemingly intuitive successes on which his reputation partly rested. More often the transitory impression, remembered and analysed, had been found irrelevant. But the subconscious could not be forced. The clue, if clue it were, for the moment eluded him.Unnatural Causesfinds Adam Dalgliesh on vacation in Monksmere on the East Suffolk coast for an annual visit to his aunt and a planned time of relaxation away from his duties at Scotland Yard CID. Death is not far away though. A corpse is brought ashore in a dinghy with its hands amputated. It is identified as the body of local writer Maurice Seton. The suspects include a brother and other writers, critics, secretaries & relatives who live in the vicinity and the local police investigate without calling in any official assistance from Scotland Yard. Adam Dalgliesh is at the heart of the investigation regardless.
Remember me, you said, at Blythburgh,
As if you were not always in my mind
And there could be an art to bend more sure
A heart already wholly you inclined
Of you, the you enchanted mind bereave
More clearly back your image to receive,
And in the unencumbered holy place
Recall again an unforgotten grace.
I you possessed must needs remember still
At Blythburgh my love, or where you will.- A poem by Adam Dalgliesh written duringUnnatural Causes.