An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P.D. James

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. She meets Mark's student friends, who are reluctant to talk and attempt to convince Cordelia that his death really was suicidal.Ĭordelia decides to move into the rundown cottage on the estate where Mark had worked. Her task is to discover the reason for Mark’s death but she begins to suspect foul play. 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.Ĭordelia 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. Pryde has left everything, including his unlicensed handgun, to Cordelia, who decides to keep the failing agency open out of gratitude. It is noted for introducing a new type of female detective at the start of the feminist era.Ģ2-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.

The book features private detective Cordelia Gray, the protagonist of both this title and The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982). It was published by Faber and Faber in the UK in 1972 and by Charles Scribner's Sons in the US. James and of a TV series of four dramas developed from that novel. An Unsuitable Job for a Woman is the title of a detective novel by P.

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P.D. James