P. D. James

Over the course of fourteen exemplary novels, with the complex character of Adam Dalgliesh, P.D. James became a luminary of British crime fiction. Debuting with 1962’s classic Cover Her Face, James brought a certain depth and modernity to the genre, weaving the traditional tropes of the ‘gentleman detective’ with a very contemporary world. In parallel, James also penned two novels featuring private detective Cordelia Gray, including An Unsuitable Job for a Woman; Dalgliesh plays a role in both. Intriguingly, in 1992, the author stepped away from crime to very successfully address science fiction in the near-future Children of Men. Death Comes to Pemberley, James’s 2011 pastiche sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, proved to be her final complete novel.