"An Unsuitable Job for a Woman" by PD James

Bernie Pryde is dead. To avoid the hardships of living with cancer and going through the treatment he preferred suicide. He leaves his private detective agency to Cordelia Gray, his business partner. What is Cordelia to do with it?

She doesn’t seem to have much choice. She has to run it, to try and earn some money with it. She is all alone in the world, a young girl who never knew a mother, a daughter of a left politician who cared little for his father’s duty, a maverick raised by nuns. Now that her father is dead and her only friend and boss is dead too, she has only herself to rely on.

Yet everyone tells her that running a detective agency is an unsuitable job for a woman.

A tragic figure, Cordelia Gray. Left all alone in the world so young, with so little hope for the future, she fights for herself desperately, having no time for complaints. Her name is way too big, too theatrical for her. Her beauty is of no consequence. It’s her strength of will rather than her beauty, which is to save her daily and give her hope.

It’s up to Cordelia to run the main investigation in this book. But the author’s other favourite character, Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh, appears in it too. He’s often mentioned throughout the book – it so happens that poor Bernie was his huge fan, despite having been fired from the police by the perfectionist Superintendent. And at the end of the story Cordelia gets to actually meet him face to face…

But before that she needs to investigate the ghastly death of the young Mark Callender. He was found hanged in his little cabin, and his death was generally accepted as suicide, except by his father. So he hired Cordelia to look into the circumstances of his son’s death once again.

Cordelia did her job thoroughly… too thoroughly. She met an old Nanny, several young and merry Oxford students, an old doctor now safely out of his mind and therefore unable to tell her anything… but still a clue. She survived an attempt on her life – by a miracle. And so, step by step, she discovered the shocking truth, only to conceal it from the rest of the world.

But she couldn’t fool Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh…

The book feels a bit gloomy, which is not unusual for P.D. James. It reads in one go though. Having read it in translation many years ago, I re-read it in English last year, recognising the half-forgotten plot as I proceeded and feeling again that strong, stubborn and not at all feminine Cordelia would haunt me for days afterwards. I’m not sure I want to re-read the book again, but I might some day. This chaacter is drawn a little too thoroughly, too deeply for an investigator in a detective novel, but that’s exactly why this book stands out. It leaves a mixed aftertaste: not altogether pleasant and not exactly bad. Those who like detective stories with a little gloom and doom thrown around will love it.

I find it a pity that P.D. James wrote only two books about Cordelia Gray. This character had more potential – but she was apparently too fond of Dalgliesh (so am I). But I’m glad she wrote this particular book. It’s definitely worth the time I spent reading it.

"An Unsuitable Job for a Woman" by PD James