Sunday, November 30, 2014

P.D. James dies at 94--

On Thanksgiving Day it was announced that English mystery writer great P.D. James had died.  She was 94.  Her actual name (and title) was Phyllis Dorothy James White, Baroness James of Holland Park.
Although I hadn't read any of her work, I seem to recall a fondness   when others talked about James' Adam Dalgliesh in book club discussions about various book characters.  Dalgliesh, identified as   a police commander and poet, is a fixture with police procedural mysteries with novels published for numerous years beginning from  1962 (Cover Her Face) and television appearances. 

  Her writing spanned to a private investigator series with Cordelia  Gray (who I did see in a TV adaptation) and most recently with a  mystery set in 1803 featuring characters from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice novel  in Death Comes to Pemberley published in 2011.  Examining her beloved writing genre in print, she wrote Talking About Detective Fiction (2009) about the history and appeal of mysteries and an autobiography, Time to be in Earnest (1999).

P,.D. James (photo from Google.com)
Dubbed the 'queen of crime' James enjoyed a rich recognition in writing circles for a long, successful career. To find any P.D. James books at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library click here, go to "advanced search."  Do an author search for "james, p.d." to find her books and books on CD.