The Lighthouse (James novel)

Plot summary

Adam Dalgliesh is brought in to investigate the mysterious death of a famous writer on a remote and inaccessible island off the Cornish coast.

Combe Island is a discreet retreat operated by a private trust, where the rich and powerful find peace and quiet. Famed novelist Nathan Oliver, who was born on the island and thus is allowed to visit as he wishes, arrives with his daughter, Miranda and his copy-editor, Dennis Tremlett, who, unbeknownst to Oliver, are having an affair. When he discovers them, Oliver reacts with fury and orders them to leave the island the next day.

Several people on the island find Oliver an unpleasant guest. The writer is pressuring the manager of the Combe Island Trust, Rupert Maycroft, to allow him to live in a cottage used by the sole remaining member of the family that owned the island for many years. The manager's secretary, a disgraced Anglican priest named Adrian Boyde, a recovering alcoholic, was tricked into "falling off the wagon" by Oliver, and many people are disgusted with Oliver for his heartless, evil actions. Oliver is also confronted at dinner by a scientist, Dr. Mark Yelland, who believes himself to be the model for an unpleasant character in Oliver's upcoming book.

The reader is introduced to all the residents of the island, including Jago Tamlyn, the boatman, and Daniel Padgett, a handyman who is planning to leave after the recent death of his mother, who also worked on the island. Oliver is angry at Padgett, who dropped a phial of the author's blood into the sea while taking it to a doctor on the mainland for some medical tests.

The next morning, Oliver is discovered hanging from the island's historic lighthouse. Dalgliesh and his team arrive to investigate. The pathologist, Dr. Edith Glenister, determines Oliver was throttled to death before a rope was tied around his neck and his body thrown over the side of the lighthouse railing.

Dalgliesh learns that a visiting dignitary from Germany, Dr. Raimund Speidel, is the son of a German officer who died under tragic circumstances while visiting the island during World War II. He further learns that Nathan Oliver's father, Saul, and Jago's grandfather, Tom, played a role in the man's death.

Dr. Speidel was ill before arriving on Combe Island, and Dalgliesh contracts his illness. Just as the two men are diagnosed with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, Dalgliesh discovers that Adrian Boyde has been murdered. Health authorities put the island under quarantine to contain the spread of disease, and all the people on the island are asked by the police to move into Combe House, the main building, to protect them from further attacks. Dalgliesh takes to the sickroom and his colleagues, Kate Miskin and Francis Benton-Smith, are left to work the case. Benton risks his life to climb down a cliff to find the rock used to beat Boyde to death.

Surfacing from fever, Dalgleish has a feverish vision that helps him fit the pieces of the puzzle together. Realising that Padgett must have been the murderer, he orders Kate and Francis to search Padgett's cottage, where they find the phial of Oliver's blood that he had pretended to lose overboard, a lock of Padgett's mother's hair, her and Dan Padgett's birth certificates, and the destroyed remains of her figurines and a book written by Oliver in which a young girl is seduced by an older man. Oliver was actually Padgett's father; Padgett wanted the blood for a DNA test to confirm paternity. Padgett killed Oliver in a fit of anger after confronting him in the lighthouse. He killed Adrian Boyde because the priest knew Padgett wasn't telling the truth about his whereabouts the day Oliver was killed.

Before Kate and Francis can arrest Padgett, he takes a young staff member, Millie Tranter, hostage and threatens to throw her from the lighthouse. Kate bravely forces herself through a narrow window so she can unlock the lighthouse door. She and Benton climb to the top, confront Padgett, and Benton convinces him to surrender.

Dalgliesh recovers from his illness, and after the break of the investigation and quarantine, he and his lover Emma both overcome their fears about each other's seeming lack of commitment, and agree to marry.