Author | P. D. James |
---|---|
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Series | Cordelia Gray No. 1 |
Genre | Mystery |
Publisher | Faber & Faber |
Publication date | 1972 |
Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
Pages | 287 |
ISBN | 0-446-31517-6 (Paperback edition) |
OCLC | 31623136 |
Followed by | The Skull Beneath the Skin |
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman is the title of a detective novel by English writer P. D. James and of a TV series of four dramas developed from that novel. It was published by Faber and Faber in the UK [1] in 1972 and by Charles Scribner's Sons in the US. [2]
The book features private detective Cordelia Gray, the protagonist of both this title and The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982). It is noted for introducing a new type of female detective at the start of the feminist era.
22-year-old private detective Cordelia Gray walks into the London office she shares with former police detective Bernie Pryde to find her partner has committed suicide. Pryde has left everything, including his unlicensed handgun, to Cordelia, who decides to keep the failing agency open out of gratitude. When she returns to her office from the funeral service, she is visited by her first client, Elizabeth Leaming, assistant to prominent scientist Sir Ronald Callender, whose son Mark recently hanged himself.
Cordelia travels to Cambridge, where Mark had left university and taken a job as gardener despite decent grades and the prospect of a considerable inheritance from his maternal grandfather. Her task is to discover the reason for Mark’s death but she begins to suspect foul play. She meets Mark's student friends, who are reluctant to talk and attempt to convince Cordelia that his death really was suicidal.
Cordelia decides to move into the rundown cottage on the estate where Mark had worked. As she sifts through Mark's effects, trying to get a clearer picture of his life, she becomes ever more convinced that his death could not have been suicide. Repeatedly, friendly overtures from Mark's former companions try to lead her away from the investigation but Cordelia is determined to succeed in her first solo case. Returning to the cottage one night and finding an effigy hanging from the same hook on which Mark's body had been suspended convinces her that someone is trying to scare her off.
She finds out that a certain Nanny Pilbeam, formerly nanny to Mark's mother, had attended Mark's cremation and goes to question her. The old woman tells Cordelia that she went to see Mark at his college and gave him a Book of Common Prayer that his mother had wanted him to have when he turned 21. Cordelia finds the book in the cottage and discovers in it evidence that Lady Callender could not have been Mark's mother.
Back at the cottage the following night, someone attacks Cordelia, throws her down a well and replaces the cover. She is saved by a combination of her own resourcefulness and the good luck that the cottage owner notices the well has been tampered with. Cordelia in turn lies in wait with Bernie's gun in order to ambush her would-be killer. He turns out to be Sir Ronald's laboratory assistant, Lunn, who had been tailing her during her investigations. However, he escapes in his van, only to die in a collision with a truck. Certain now of her case, Cordelia continues to Sir Ronald's house, where Miss Leaming takes her gun from her and leads her to Sir Ronald. Cordelia privately accuses him of the murder of his son, which he defiantly admits, sure that nothing can be proved against him. Miss Leaming, however, who has overheard him, enters the office and shoots him with Cordelia's gun.
Miss Leaming confesses to Cordelia that she was Mark's true mother but was prevented from telling him by Sir Ronald. Lady Callender had been infertile and died shortly after Mark's birth. Sir Ronald had murdered Mark when he was close to discovering the truth, so as not to lose his wife's fortune. Cordelia sympathises with Miss Leaming and the two rearrange the crime scene to look like yet another suicide and it is accepted as such by the coroner. The case, however, is referred to Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh, who had been Bernie Pryde’s commander originally and then sacked him. Word arrives during their interview that Leaming has been killed in a car crash, allowing Cordelia to maintain the fiction they concocted together. Dalgliesh admits to Cordelia, based on his observation of her abilities, that perhaps he had underrated Pryde. He also believes that he has worked out the true facts of the case, but in private conference with his superiors says there is little point in disturbing the official story in view of the social and international pressures on the police.
Cordelia returns resignedly to the agency and finds her next client waiting, a man who believes his 'lady friend' might be cheating on him.
The New York Times judged the book "A top-rated puzzle of peril that holds you all the way", [3] whose characters "are anything but stereotypes," although "at the very end, things are a little too pat". [4] Jacques Barzun, in a later supplement to his A Catalogue of Crime , however, thought it "barely passable". [5]
Authors commenting on the introduction of the new type of female detective at the dawn of the feminist era noted the novel as a key pioneering work in which the focus is "at least as much on character and theme as…on crime". [6] Another critic described it as "a political contribution to the recasting of the female detective mould", noting in particular how its heroine avenges a young man's murder by his father and connives in the murder in return of the father by the boy's mother in an act of feminine solidarity. [7]
The book has been twice adapted. The first adaptation, directed by Chris Petit, was released in UK cinemas in 1982, featuring Pippa Guard as Cordelia. It was financed and produced by Goldcrest Films/ The National Film Finance Corporation and Don Boyd.
A television series starring Helen Baxendale as Cordelia and Annette Crosbie as Edith Sparshott was made in 1997 and 2001, based in part upon the book.
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Cordelia Gray is a fictional character created by English author Phyllis D. James. Gray is the protagonist of two novels, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972) and of The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982). Cordelia Gray is a young woman who works as a private detective in London, having inherited the detective agency "Pryde" on the death of her boss, Bernie Pryde, who committed suicide.
Adam Dalgliesh is a fictional character who is the protagonist of fourteen mystery novels by P. D. James; the first being James's 1962 novel Cover Her Face. He also appears in the two novels featuring James's other detective, Cordelia Gray.
The Sittaford Mystery is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1931 under the title of The Murder at Hazelmoor and in UK by the Collins Crime Club on 7 September of the same year under Christie's original title. It is the first Christie novel to be given a different title for the US market. The US edition retailed at $2.00 and the UK edition at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6).
The Body in the Library is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in February 1942 and in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in May of the same year. The US edition retailed at $2.00 and the UK edition at seven shillings and sixpence. The novel features her fictional amateur detective Miss Marple.
Unnatural Causes is a detective novel by English crime writer P. D. James. The third to feature Adam Dalgliesh, it was published in the UK by Faber & Faber in 1967 and by Charles Scribner's Sons in the US. A paperback edition followed the same year. An adaptation of the novel was filmed for television in 1993.
Murder in the Mews and Other Stories is a short story collection by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by Collins Crime Club on 15 March 1937. In the US, the book was published by Dodd, Mead and Company under the title Dead Man's Mirror in June 1937 with one story missing ; the 1987 Berkeley Books edition of the same title has all four stories. All of the tales feature Hercule Poirot. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the first US edition at $2.00.
The Skull Beneath The Skin is a 1982 detective novel by English writer P. D. James, featuring her female private detective Cordelia Gray. The novel is set in a reconstructed Victorian castle on the fictional Courcy Island on the Dorset coast and centers around actress Clarissa Lisle, who is to play John Webster's drama The Duchess of Malfi in the castle's restored theatre. It takes its title from T. S. Eliot's poem Whispers of Immortality, where Webster is famously said to be "much possessed by death" and to see "the skull beneath the skin".
The Thirteen Problems is a short story collection by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by Collins Crime Club in June 1932 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1933 under the title The Tuesday Club Murders. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $2.00. The thirteen stories feature the amateur detective Miss Marple, her nephew Raymond West, and her friend Sir Henry Clithering. They are the earliest stories Christie wrote about Miss Marple. The main setting for the frame story is the fictional village of St Mary Mead.
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Black Coffee is a play by the British crime-fiction author Agatha Christie (1890–1976) which was produced initially in 1930. The first piece that Christie wrote for the stage, it launched a successful second career for her as a playwright. In the play, a scientist discovers that someone in his household has stolen the formula for an explosive. The scientist calls Hercule Poirot to investigate, but is murdered just as Poirot arrives with Hastings and Inspector Japp.
The gentleman detective, less commonly lady detective, is a type of fictional character. He has long been a staple of crime fiction, particularly in detective novels and short stories set in the United Kingdom in the Golden Age. The heroes of these adventures are typically both gentlemen by conduct and often also members of the British gentry. The literary heroes being in opposition to professional police force detectives from the working classes.
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman is a 1982 British psychological thriller film directed by Chris Petit and starring Billie Whitelaw, Paul Freeman, and Pippa Guard. It follows a young female private investigator who is hired to investigate the mysterious suicide of a university student, only to uncover a number of disturbing secrets about his family. The film is based on the 1972 novel of the same name by P. D. James. It marked the first adaptation of the novel, followed by a television series adaptation produced in 1997.
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman is a British television mystery drama series, based upon the 1972 novel of the same name by P.D. James, that starred Helen Baxendale and Annette Crosbie. Two series were produced, each focusing on two separate feature-length dramas, each based in part upon the book of the same name and its 1982 sequel, The Skull Beneath the Skin. These aired on ITV between 24 October 1997 and 16 May 2001, also airing in the United States on PBS as part of their Mystery! series.