P. D. James

• Born: August 3, 1920
• Birthplace: Oxford, England
• Died: November 27, 2014

English novelist

Biography

In the decades since the publication of her first book, Cover Her Face, P. D. James became one of the mystery genre’s most popular and critically acclaimed writers, considered by many to be the heir apparent to such enduring figures as Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers. Yet while James used the conventions of the traditional British murder mystery—a murder or series of murders, a detective, and a group of suspects, each with a possible motive—her novels are more firmly grounded in reality than those of either of her predecessors. Drawing on her earlier career as a hospital administrator and her work in a forensic laboratory and the British government’s Criminal Policy Department, James gave her books a level of realistic detail that separates them from the cozy, comfortable tone of many classic mysteries.

Phyllis Dorothy James was born the daughter of Sidney James, an employee of the Inland Revenue office, and his wife, Dorothy. James was educated at the Cambridge High School for Girls and at the age of sixteen went to work, like her father, in a tax office. After a brief stint as a stage manager at the Cambridge Festival Theatre, she married Ernest Conner Bantry White in 1941.

White, a physician, returned from his service in World War II with severe psychological problems. His young wife became the sole support of the family, which by that time included two daughters. Over the next thirty-five years, James worked at various times as a medical administrator in hospitals and forensic laboratories, a senior-level police department employee, and a London magistrate. Although her first novel was published in 1962 and her husband died in 1964, it was not until 1979 that she retired and began writing full-time.

The majority of James’s mysteries feature Scotland Yard investigator Adam Dalgliesh. Unlike the amateur detectives favored by many crime writers, Dalgliesh is a professional, and his direct, understated manner lends the books a gravity not often found in the genre. His success as a detective has led to his advancement over the years from the rank of detective chief inspector to commander, yet the job has at times also taken a physical and emotional toll. Dalgliesh is an intriguing character, a reserved, intelligent man and a published poet whose life has been deeply marked by his wife’s death in childbirth.

Two of James’s novels, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972) and The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982), have featured a young female detective named Cordelia Gray, a resourceful and intelligent private investigator whom many of James’s readers hoped might some day marry Dalgliesh. James remained noncommittal on the subject, although the two characters crossed paths briefly.

What set James apart from many mystery writers and earned for her a degree of acclaim and respect not generally accorded crime novelists was the seriousness with which she approached her stories. For James, the mystery genre served primarily as a useful format within which she was able to explore the complexities of human nature. The raw emotions called into play by the act of murder and the complicated psychological factors that can lead someone to commit such a crime offered James the perfect setting for her probings into the darker aspects of the human psyche.

Most of James’s books take place in relatively closed communities; James was fascinated by the many and varied ways in which people interact in these settings and the emotions that this interaction inevitably calls into play. In A Mind to Murder (1962), the setting is a prominent psychiatric clinic where a murder reveals the messy and complicated intrigues lying beneath the clinic’s surface. Shroud for a Nightingale (1971) takes place in a nurse’s training school, Death of an Expert Witness (1977) is set in a scientific laboratory, Devices and Desires (1989) unfolds in and around a nuclear power plant near a coastal village, and Original Sin (1995) sets its story in a London publishing house. The Black Tower (1975) and Death in Holy Orders (2001) take place in religious communities. Each of the books depicts a community torn apart by a violent crime, the solution to which lies buried in the intricacies of the relationships among its members.

James ventured outside the traditional mystery format for her best-selling suspense thriller Innocent Blood (1980) and the futuristic The Children of Men (1993). It is her murder mysteries, however, that have established her reputation and won for her a loyal following among readers and critics alike. In 1991 she was made a life peer by Queen Elizabeth II. Acting on the conviction that a good mystery should also be a good novel, James brought fresh insight and complexity to the conventions of the genre and established herself as one of its finest practitioners.

In 2011, with the publication of Death Comes to Pemberley, her final novel, James once again departed from her usual formula. For the first time, she decided to combine her passion for the mystery genre with her love of Jane Austen, adopting the classic writer's characters and setting from Pride and Prejudice (1813) to produce a kind of sequel with a suspenseful twist. On November 27, 2014, it was reported that James had passed away peacefully at her home in Oxford, England, at the age of ninety-four.

Bibliography

Bakerman, Jane S. “Cordelia Gray: Apprentice and Archetype.” Clues: A Journal of Detection 5 (1984): 101–14. Print.

Barber, Lynn. “The Cautious Heart of P. D. James.” Vanity Fair 56 (1993): 80. Print.

Gidez, Richard B. P. D. James. Boston: Twayne, 1986. Print.

Herbert, Rosemary. The Fatal Art of Entertainment: Interviews with Mystery Writers. New York: Hall, 1994. Print.

Horsley, Katherine, and Lee Horsley. “Mères Fatales: Maternal Guilt in the Noir Crime Novel.” Modern Fiction Studies 45.2 (1999): 369–402. Print.

Hubly, Erlene. “Adam Dalgliesh: Byronic Hero.” Clues: A Journal of Detection 3 (1982): 40–46. Print.

James, P. D. Time to Be in Earnest: A Fragment of Autobiography. New York: Knopf, 2000. Print.

Macintyre, Ben. Rev. of A Certain Justice, by P. D. James. New York Times Book Review 7 Dec. 1997: 26. Print.

Maxfield, James F. “The Unfinished Detective: The Work of P. D. James.” Critique 28.4 (1987): 211–23. Print.

Porter, Dennis. “Detection and Ethics: The Case of P. D. James.” In The Sleuth and the Scholar: Origins, Evolution, and Current Trends in Detective Fiction. Ed. Barbara A. Rader and Howard G. Zettler. Westport: Greenwood, 1988. Print.

Priestman, Martin. “P. D. James and the Distinguished Thing.” In On Modern British Fiction. New York: Oxford, 2002. Print.

Rowland, Susan. From Agatha Christie to Ruth Rendell: British Women Writers in Detective and Crime Fiction. New York: Palgrave, 2003. Print.

Siebenheller, Norma. P. D. James. New York: Ungar, 1981. Print.

Stasio, Marilyn. “No Gore, Please—They’re British.” Writer 103 (1990): 15–16. Print.

Stasio, Marilyn. "P. D. James, Creator of the Adam Dalgliesh Mysteries, Dies at 94." New York Times. New York Times, 27 Nov. 2014. Web. 28 Dec. 2015.

Wood, Ralph C. “A Case for P. D. James as a Christian Novelist.” Theology Today 59.4 (2003): 583–95. Print.