An Unsuitable Job for a Woman
First edition
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| Author | P. D. James |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Cordelia Gray No. 1 |
| Genre | Mystery novel |
| Publisher | Faber & Faber |
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Publication date
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1972 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| Pages | 287 pp |
| ISBN | (Paperback edition) |
| OCLC | 31623136 |
| Followed by | The Skull Beneath the Skin |
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman is the title of a 1972 detective novel by P. D. James – and also the title of a TV series of four dramas developed from that novel.
It features privare detective Cordelia Gray, the protagonist of both this title and The Skull Beneath the Skin. Cordelia inherited a detective agency and from there took on her first case.
The book has been twice adapted. The first adaptation – directed by Chris Petit – was released in UK cinemas in 1982, featuring Pippa Guard as Cordelia. It was financed and produced by Goldcrest Films/ The National Film Finance Corporation and Don Boyd Films.
A television series starring Helen Baxendale as Cordelia and Annette Crosbie as Edith Sparshott was made in 1997 and 1999, based in part upon the book.
Young private detective Cordelia Gray walks into the London office she shares with former police detective Bernie Pryde to find her partner dead. Pryde has left everything, including his unlicensed handgun, to Cordelia. With a failing detective agency in her possession and no money, her choices are limited, but rather than return to her former secretarial job she opts to keep the agency in memory of Bernie. Her first client is Elizabeth Leaming, an assistant to prominent scientist Sir Ronald Callender, whose son, Mark, recently died in suspicious circumstances.
Cordelia travels to Cambridge, where the young man was a university student. She meets Mark's friends and immediately suspects they all share some dark secret. They are reluctant to talk, and attempt to convince her that Mark's death was a suicide just as the police investigation had determined, and that no further investigation is needed. She manages to discover from them where Mark was living, and she visits the place.
Mark Callender had left university despite decent grades and a promising future, including the prospect of a considerable inheritance from his maternal grandfather. He had then taken a job as a gardener for another rich family near Cambridge, and was living in a small cottage on the property. Cordelia immediately falls in love with the rundown cottage, and decides to move in there herself for the duration of her investigation. As she sifts through Mark's effects, trying to get a clear picture of his life, she finds a deep sense of sympathy with him, and becomes ever more convinced that his death could not have been suicide.
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Wikipedia