The Black Tower

Touchstone Reading Group Guide

1. Are you shocked that Cordelia decides to conceal the facts not only of Mark Callendar’s death but also of Ronald Callendar’s murder? Why does she do it? Adam Dalgliesh speculates that she is lying for the sake of justice and tells her, “Justice. A very dangerous concept, Miss Gray.” Do you agree?

2. Cordelia Gray is an inexperienced young private detective, while James’s other frequent hero, Adam Dalgliesh, is a highly experienced professional policeman. Are they alike in some ways? How does their relationship to each other change in the course of the novel?

1. At the end of the novel, Cordelia Gray says that “it was almost impossible to believe that she had first seen Courcy Castle only three days earlier. In that short span of time she seemed to have lived through long, action-packed years, to have become a different person.” In what ways does the murder investigation change Cordelia?

2. James assigns the task of suspect interrogation to Sergeant Robert Buckley and Grogan, yet, ultimately, neither of them helps solve Clarissa’s murder. Why is Cordelia so much more successful at getting possible suspects to talk to her and at deciphering clues such as the newspaper clipping and the jewelry boxes?

1. When Philippa first learns that her mother was a murderess about to be released from prison, did you expect that her mother would be a threat to Philippa? Were you surprised to find her a gentle, even sympathetic character? Where does the suspense in the novel come from?

2. How does Philippa change in the course of the novel? What does her final encounter with Norman Scase reveal about her growth? Do you accept as true that “it is only through learning to love that we find identity”?

1. Chapter Four gives a window into the thoughts of each of the Martingale suspects, including the actual murderer. How does James provide a convincing glimpse of the murderer’s state of mind, without revealing the person’s guilt?

2. How does the presence of a sleeping drug in Sally Jupp’s cocoa function as a red herring? How, too, does the bolted door? Which is more effective in leading Dalgliesh astray?

1. This novel is set in a psychiatric clinic, yet none of the patients is ever seriously considered to be a suspect. Instead, it is the staff who comes under Dalgliesh’s scrutiny. Why do you think James chooses to make suspects of ordinary people rather than the mentally ill?

2. In the end, the A.C. concludes, “It was a perfectly straightforward case. The obvious suspect, the obvious motive.” Dalgliesh responds bitterly, “Too obvious for me, apparently.” Why is Dalgliesh thrown off so long from identifying the killer? Can you blame him as much as he blames himself?

1. Detective Inspector Reckless and Adam Dalgliesh are working to solve the same mystery and have access to the same evidence. Yet Dalgliesh is able to guess the method of Maurice Seton’s murder and Reckless is not. How does Dalgliesh do it? What are his particular gifts as a detective?

2. Once the taped confession is played, Jane Dalgliesh goes to the kitchen and fills the kettle. Adam wonders, “Now that it was all over was she even interested in that tumult of hate which had destroyed and disrupted so many lives including her own? … Never before had his aunt’s uninvolvement struck him so forcibly; never before had it seemed so frightening.” Could the same word, uninvolvement, be used to describe Adam Dalgliesh? Could his strong negative reaction to Jane’s uninvolvement be related to the letter he had just received from Deborah Riscoe?

1. Near the end of the novel, Nurse Taylor begs Dalgliesh to lie for her. To what higher good does she appeal? Why is Dalgliesh so quick to refuse?

2. The nurses depicted in this novel are very different in personality. Who among them is the best nurse? Is that character also the most appealing human being?

1. At the beginning of the novel, Dalgliesh makes a decision to quit the police force. Why? How does his disavowal of police work affect the investigation of his suspicions about the deaths at Toynton Grange?

2. During his final confrontation with the killer, Dalgliesh realizes that he has decided to return to the police force. James writes, “The decision to go on, arrived at when and why Dalgliesh didn’t know, seemed to him as irrational as the decision to give up. It wasn’t a victory. A kind of defeat even….” Do you agree with Dalgliesh that his decision to go on with police work is irrational or a defeat?

1. While considering possible murder motives, Dalgliesh tells Massingham that “… the most destructive force in the world is … love. And if you want to make a detective you’d better learn to recognize it when you meet it.” How does the clunch pit murder that opens the novel illustrate this statement?

2. After recalling the loss of his son, Dalgliesh suddenly realizes “that he knew virtually nothing about children…. There was a whole territory of human experience on which, once repulsed, he had turned his back, and that this rejection somehow diminished him as a man.” How is Dalgliesh’s personal loss reflected in his treatment of the teenager Brenda Pridmore and Kerrison’s children, William and Nell?