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 a murder. "The light is fading, but we might just have time." Nor does the detective think it incongruous to enjoy the rose garden, with its hedges of yew and hawthorn and beech, while investigating a homicide. Nor is the effect lost on the reader as the two talk of murder in this lovely pastoral setting.

Equally, events are never so dire or matters so pressing that time cannot be taken for tea. In the middle of the most serious probings, one person is sure to say, "I'll make some tea." And rightly so. Making tea is one of mankind's most civilized traits, and the author is right in mentioning the cups and saucers, the china pot and the boiling kettle….

In spite of these domestic touches, however, Miss James's work is modern in the ambiguous makeup of her characters, their complex motives and the shrewd psychological touches of the relationship between the police and the criminals they pursue. There are no stark villains in her books, and not every cop is a paragon of virtue. In the first and third books, the victims are not very admirable; contrariwise, every reader will regret seeing the true murderer stand revealed in that first novel. It is a person easy to like.