Author | P. D. James |
---|---|
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Series | Cordelia Gray #2 |
Genre | Crime, mystery |
Publisher | Faber and Faber |
Publication date | 1982 |
Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
Pages | 384 |
ISBN | 0-571-11961-1 |
OCLC | 59161851 |
Preceded by | An Unsuitable Job for a Woman |
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".
Cordelia Gray is engaged by Sir George Ralston, a baronet and World War II hero, to accompany his wife, the acclaimed actress Clarissa Lisle, for a weekend at Courcy Castle on the island of the same name on the Dorset coast. Clarissa has been receiving thinly veiled death threats in form of quotations from plays where she played the main role.
Shortly before the performance of The Duchess of Malfi, Clarissa is brutally murdered, leaving Cordelia and the Dorset CID to deal with solving the crime.
Critics note that Cordelia's characterization shifts between An Unsuitable Job for a Woman and The Skull Beneath the Skin. Joan G. Kotker states the second novel creates "this image of Gray as a failure," where similar plot elements to the first novel "are treated in such a way as to cast doubt on the credibility of the initial event and of Gray's interpretation of it." [1] Similarly, Nicola Nixon suggests that the sequel is intentionally structured like An Unsuitable Job for a Woman to "highlight various subtle adjustments to Cordelia - adjustments, I would suggest, that are designed primarily to quash readers' enthusiasm for her as a proto-feminist." [2]
A Catalogue of Crime writes of the book: "Nothing is more disappointing than the poor work of a good craftsman. P. D. James, hailed as Christie's successor and in some ways an abler hand at characterization, has given steady proof of her mastery of the genre. She even created in Cordelia Gray a likable and credible woman investigator. Here she brings her back, but makes her act like a bewildered maiden, though she heads a London detective agency. Besides, the plot is full of unlikelihoods, including the reason for the island setting and the crime itself." [3] -
In a 1982 book review, Julian Symons of The New York Times wrote "'The Skull Beneath the Skin' is perhaps an acknowledgment that she had reached too far, a deliberate step back in the direction of orthodoxy. It is a disappointment to the extent that the criminal results don't flow as they should from the stated motives, but this is still an absorbing story, paced and written with fine calculation, a work quite beyond the scope of more than a very few of her contemporaries." [4]
Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park,, known professionally as P. D. James, was an English novelist and life peer. Her rise to fame came with her series of detective novels featuring the police commander and poet, Adam Dalgliesh.
Sleeping Murder: Miss Marple's Last Case is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in October 1976 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed for £3.50 and the US edition for $7.95.
John Webster was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, which are often seen as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. His life and career overlapped with Shakespeare's.
The Duchess of Malfi is a Jacobean revenge tragedy written by English dramatist John Webster in 1612–1613. It was first performed privately at the Blackfriars Theatre, then later to a larger audience at The Globe, in 1613–1614.
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 in 1972 and by Charles Scribner's Sons in the US.
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.
Cover Her Face is the debut 1962 crime novel of P. D. James. It details the investigations into the death of a young, ambitious maid, surrounded by a family which has reasons to want her gone – or dead. The title is taken from a passage from John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi: "Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle; she died young," which is quoted by one of the characters in the novel.
The Black Tower is a detective novel by English writer P.D. James, published in 1975. It is part of her Adam Dalgliesh series.
Gosick is a Japanese light novel series written by Kazuki Sakuraba, with illustrations by Hinata Takeda. The series includes 13 novels published by Fujimi Shobo between December 2003 and July 2011. Set in a fictional European country in 1924, a Japanese exchange student meets a mysterious, brilliant girl who only leaves the library to sleep. Her brother, a detective, relies on her exceptional mind to solve difficult mysteries. Tokyopop released the first two novels in English in North America. A manga adaptation drawn by Sakuya Amano was serialized in Fujimi Shobo's Monthly Dragon Age magazine. A 24-episode anime adaptation by Bones aired between January and July 2011. A collection of side stories titled GosickS was published between 2005 and 2011, while a sequel novel series named Gosick New Continent was released in between 2013 and 2016.
The Door Between is a novel that was published in 1937 by Ellery Queen. It is a mystery novel primarily set in New York City, United States.
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.
Robert Nixon was an American serial killer, born in the small town of Tallulah, Louisiana, who confessed to five murders and multiple assaults, including the Los Angeles "brick bat murders" of 1937. Depicted with racist imagery in the mainstream press after his arrest, he was given the nickname the "Brick Moron" as he killed his victims with bricks and was depicted as dimwitted.
Luigi d'Aragona (1474–1519) was an Italian Roman Catholic cardinal. He had a highly successful career in the church, but his memory is affected by the allegation that he ordered the murder of his own sister and two of her children.
Deadly Heat is the fifth novel in Richard Castle's series about NYPD homicide detective Nikki Heat and journalist Jameson Rook. It was released on September 17, 2013. The novel is published by Hyperion Books in collaboration with ABC. ABC produces the TV series Castle where the main character, Richard Castle, to whom the book is credited, shadows NYPD Detective Kate Beckett.
Antonio Beccadelli of Bologna (c.1475-1513) was an Italian aristocrat, whose tragic love affair and secret marriage with Giovanna d'Aragona, Duchess of Amalfi, inspired several works of literature, most notably John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi and Lope de Vega's El mayordomo de la Duquesa Amalfi.
Giovanna d'Aragona, Duchess of Amalfi (1478–1510) was an Italian aristocrat, regent of the Duchy of Amalfi during the minority of her son from 1498 until 1510. Her tragic life inspired several works of literature, most notably John Webster's play, The Duchess of Malfi.
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.