Review - P D James - An Unsuitable Job for a Woman

In this day this title sounded a bit strange and this is why I picked it up. I love P D James

and Adam Dalgleish her famous detective but this was another detective - unconnected to the famous one and this is the first book of the Cordelia Grey series.

Mark Callender is found hanging in his room with a suicide note beside him. Although not known to be depressed, mentally ill or having shown any signs of being other than normal, his death is ruled as a suicide. His father a very eminent scientist hires Cordelia to find out the why - he does not dispute the suicide just wants to know why.

P D James never does anything by halves. All your preconceived ideas of the who/why/where go out of the window. I loved the rich description of Cambridge - the countryside surrounding Cambridge as well as Cambridge are so beautifully described that one wants to move to that part of the country, and preferably also experience the unique position of being a Cambridge undergraduate.

Cordelia in this her first job on her own follows her mentor's instructions to the letter. Still reeling from his death (also a suicide) Cordelia very cleverly maneuvres around Mark's supposed friends as well as bystanders who seem disinterested and at the same time surreptitiously very interested in knowing what Cordelia is going to do next.

Solving young Mark's death is not the only interesting feature of this book. We have Cordelia's relationship with others involved in the case and this is one feature which makes the book slightly different to normal detective stories.

A quick, easy read. Different from her normal Adam Dalgleish series this was a pleasant change.