I just read these two  yesterday and this morning.  I vaguely recollect reading a PD James book a long time ago but have not read any others and now I don’t know why.  I loved The Private Patient.  It ticks all the boxes for a great mystery read, an intelligent sleuth, a well developed sense of place, abundant red herrings, appropriate pacing for the plot, and a large cast of characters each with their own complex histories and motivations.  This was well written and such an enjoyable  read that I will definitely seek out more books by PD James.

Murder in the Kitchen was a freebie Kindle romantic/chick lit mystery.  The books involves the classic mystery trope of an isolated manor house leaving the reader with a small cast of suspects to investigate along with the sleuths, Harley and Cordelia. The sleuths at times seemed more interested in romance than mystery solving and some of the other characters were cartoonish in their simplicity, the wanna be celebrity, the publicity hungry investigative photo “journalist”, the crotchety cook/household staff, etc.  This was a light, very short mystery.  The ending and the reasoning behind it seemed slightly contrived.