The young women of Nightingale House are there to learn to nurse and comfort the suffering. But when one of the students takes her turn as the patient in a demonstration of nursing skills, she is horribly killed when a cleaning fluid is poured down the tube inserted in her throat. Soon another student dies and Adam Dalgliesh has his work cut out for him.
P.D. James is so quotable. Here's a good one from this book: "If you are proposing to commit a sin it is as well to commit it with intelligence. Otherwise you are insulting God as well as defying him."
This book was full of words I needed to look up:
tessellated (hall) (floor) - checkered or mottled
minatory (voice) - threatening or menacing
theurgy - miracle worker
invidious - envious or injurious
lugubrious - mournful
etiolated (neck) - lacking in strength; pale
pavane (verbal) - stately court dance
plaice - large European flounder
I found this picture of a nurse in a magazine ad. I think the bottle she is holding is STP and she is "doctoring" a car. I wanted to tone down the glossiness and make it look like she was from the 1950s, so after painting over the label on the bottle and setting her against a somber backdrop, I covered her with beige tissue paper and matte medium. I used Schmincke "Madder Red" gouache for the title, using my poor rendition of Mike Kecseg's pointed pen Blackletter alphabet.
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