An Unsuitable Job For A Woman (Cordelia Gray #1)

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An Unsuitable Job For A Woman (Cordelia Gray #1)

3.82 of 5 stars 3.82 · rating details · 5,359 ratings · 294 reviews

Handsome Cambridge dropout Mark Callender died hanging by the neck with a faint trace of lipstick on his mouth. When the official verdict is suicide, his wealthy father hires fledgling private investigator Cordelia Gray to find out what led him to self-destruction. What she discovers instead is a twisting trail of secrets and sins, and the strong scent of murder.

An Unsui

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Paperback, 256 pages

Published April 3rd 2001 by Touchstone (first published 1972)

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Dec 30, 2008 Richard rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm torn about whether to give this 3 or 4 stars. I'll give it 4 now, and we'll see how that goes. Maybe I'll read more by her and then reassess it against her larger oeuvre. Anyway, I really liked this a lot. I used to read mysteries like crazy in high school, but somehow I never read P. D. James. Pity. Her work has all of that typical coziness of the British mystery, but because the main character is a private eye, it doesn't strain credibility like Miss Marple or something, constantly stumbl...more

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Jun 03, 2007 Trin rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery, english-lit

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Apr 12, 2013 Anirban rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: private-investigators, british-mystery

This was my 4th PD James novel. The protagonist of this book happened to be Miss Cordelia Gray, unlike the other three, where the protagonist was Adam Dalgleish, James’s much celebrated policeman.
I am not a big fan of P.D.James as I find her book too literary for my taste. I hate when the author of a crime fiction uses up half a page to describe the weather or the birds on the trees. And, I had the same problem with her other novels. However, in this book, although the same descriptions were pr...more

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Mar 08, 2013 Nina Jon rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the first PD James’novel I've read and therefore I'm unable to compare it to her other books. Although written in the 70s, tech apart, it didn't come across as dated. In some ways it reminded me of the first of the Millennium Trilogy. Both novels feature a family member who, dissatisfied with a police investigation, instruct someone outside the police to reopen the case, only to open a can of worms instead with all that entails.
The narrative structure was very easy to follow and I knew w...more

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Jan 17, 2013 Liz Conklin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: english-mysteries-book-club

I read this for a Goodreads book club and enjoyed it, as I do almost anything English. I instantly liked Cordelia Gray, so confident and self-possessed. I have yet to fully understand her motives, but am looking forward to getting to know her better through subsequent books.

Below is the comment I posted to the English Mysteries book club discussion:

I find myself continuing to think about Cordelia and wondering why she made the choices she did. It would be interesting to have additional backgrou...more

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Aug 13, 2012 Vipula rated it 4 of 5 stars

The book opens on a dismal day when Cordelia walks into her dusty detective agency office to discover that her senior partner and co-owner , Bernie, has killed himself.
Cordelia has now become the sole owner of this extermely non-profitable business. However, soon enough, Sir Ronald Callander, an upcoming scientist, hires her to take a closer look at his son’s death, Mark Callander. Mark disappeared from Cambridge and took an unlikely position as a gardner with the Marklands. Within a few months...more

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Apr 21, 2012 Eileend rated it 4 of 5 stars

No spoilers.
A wonderful mystery that grabs you from the first page. James' descriptions of characters make them immediately three-dimensional, and you are pulled along with Cordelia Gray as her invisible Watson. I found Cordelia to be a very real character and although the book was published in 1972, it's still mostly timeless. The idea that everyone seems to think detective work is unsuitable for a woman shouldn't ring as true today, but it does. And every young woman (and perhaps man) finds...more

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May 29, 2010 Surreysmum rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1988, mystery

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. [These notes were made in 1988:]. I thought I might not like this James as much as some others because it does not star her detective Adam Dalgliesh. But in fact Dalgliesh is a sort of ghostly presence throughout: he was the mentor of the business partner of the young woman, Cordelia Gray, who is investigating the suicide (it turns out to be a murder, of course) at the centre of the plot. Cordelia's partner also committed suicide. She, left alone with a less than flourishing detective business,...more [These notes were made in 1988:]. I thought I might not like this James as much as some others because it does not star her detective Adam Dalgliesh. But in fact Dalgliesh is a sort of ghostly presence throughout: he was the mentor of the business partner of the young woman, Cordelia Gray, who is investigating the suicide (it turns out to be a murder, of course) at the centre of the plot. Cordelia's partner also committed suicide. She, left alone with a less than flourishing detective business, is given an assignment by an apparently respectable scientist, to find out just why his college-age son left Cambridge, went to work as a gardener, and killed himself, all in the space of a few weeks. There are a number of very strange characters involved, and it turns out there is some mystery surrounding the parentage of the young man himself. But the final motive is money -- Mark (that's his name) was going to come into a great deal of money from his maternal grandmother. When he discovered, as he did in the last weeks of his life, that the woman he supposed had been his mother wasn't, he resolved not to take up his inheritance. This leads to his death; he is killed by his own father, whose mania about the scientific establishment he is trying to run is matched by a pure callousness about individual humans. Among the victims of this callousness is the woman who runs his household: a woman who turns out to be Mark's real mother, and who, near the end of the book, in Cordelia's presence, kills the scientist with Cordelia's gun. Here Cordelia diverges from the usual path of the detective, and not only does not divulge this murder to the police, but helps the unfortunate Miss Leaming conceal her crime very effectively. I have omitted all sorts of sub-plot here; for instance, a gruesome attempt is made on Cordelia's life by a sort of adopted son of the scientist (he throws her down an abandoned well), and he, as well as the scientist and Miss Leaming, ends up dead by the end of the novel. But Adam Dalgliesh, into whose hands this case finally falls, is no fool. He suspects what we readers know to be the actual state of affairs, and gives Cordelia every chance to tell him the truth. But one gets the impression that he is rather glad, after all, that she sticks to her story, and the whole thing remains officially unsolved. Character triumphs over the mechanics of plot once again, to my great delight.
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Apr 06, 2009 Johnny rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery

What happens when a very sharp woman finds herself in partnership with a failed detective only to discover that the detective was never quite what he claimed to be? What happens when that same failed detective commits suicide and leaves that detective agency to that same woman? Can she operate under the methodological standards her deceased partner has given her, vicarious words of wisdom from James’ other protagonist, Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgleish?
My impression is that a very satisfying...more What happens when a very sharp woman finds herself in partnership with a failed detective only to discover that the detective was never quite what he claimed to be? What happens when that same failed detective commits suicide and leaves that detective agency to that same woman? Can she operate under the methodological standards her deceased partner has given her, vicarious words of wisdom from James’ other protagonist, Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgleish?
My impression is that a very satisfying tale unwinds, twisting and turning through an upper class English family that keeps the proverbial stiff upper lip rather too well. To paraphrase the bard, something appears to have a rank scent in Cambridge. James’ protagonist, Cordelia Grey has to move from the clear-cut suicide of her former partner into the murky world of an apparently clear suicide by the son of a famous biologist. In scrutinizing the scene for the cause of said suicide, she wanders between the sheltered academic world of the Cambridge colleges and the inveterate concern for funds in the scientific research community. Somewhere, either in the demesne of the dons or the laboratory of the learned, is a secret that could illuminate this inexplicable death of a young man who seemed to be at peace.
Of course, part of the beauty of this novel is the tightrope James walks between playing off gender vulnerability with her new protagonist (at least, at the time of the writing of this first book in the series) and celebrating gender competence in Cordelia’s courage and cleverness. The cliché of gender weakness is overcome by heroic effort on several occasions without losing the femininity and humanity of this protagonist who seems both genuinely attractive and unwilling to risk authentic intimacy.
I’m looking forward to reading more in the series. I want to know what becomes of this admirable woman, her detective agency, and any relationships she might sustain. Somehow, James has put together the best elements of her police procedurals with Dalgleish and classic private detective stories to give us something fresh at the same time it offers something familiar. There are no wisecracking gumshoes here, but there is plenty of suspense and flavor.
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Jan 22, 2013 Penny rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: modern-crime

This is not P D James at her best. There are so many great detective books by this author but this is not one of them.

This follows a young woman, Cordelia Gray, who is asked to investigate the suicide of a young man who was a student at Cambridge. She is asked to try to find out why he killed himself by the father.

(view spoiler)...more

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Aug 30, 2012 Lara rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-in-2012

This first book in a series features DI Dalgliesh, but mainly from the wings. He only plays a cameo role, but he is mentioned many times. However, it is really the story of a young woman in the 70s who is having to make it in the world on her own. Despite her social isolation, she is caring and is willing to use her intelligence as well as her looks to further her cause. The book is full of the culture of the day, when young women were raised to do the washing up, make tea, and not challenge men...more

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Jan 09, 2012 Philip rated it 3 of 5 stars

Re-reading the first Cordelia Gray novel, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year (2012). James only wrote one other Gray novel, THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN (1982) - she was so distressed by the changes made to the character for the TV series made from it that she felt the character was no longer "her" character, and put Cordelia aside permanently (James's name doesn't even appear on the packaging for the DVD of the series - it just says "From the creator of Adam Dalgliesh").

This is a re-...more

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Jan 18, 2013 G Hodges rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

P.D. James creates images and scenes. This is my second read of this book (first was decades ago) and the language of the book is still the most important part. James' characters are flawed as they all are, but this book was too tidy. Unique for the time it was written, in terms of topics, but there is a heaviness to the person of Cordelia which I hadn't remembered. She seems so burdened by something and not just the suicide of her partner. Using the 'suicide' of the son as a link for her to res...more

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Jan 15, 2013 Jane rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, book-club

Where I got the book: my local library.

My first shock of this review is checking Wiki to see where this novel comes in P.D. James's oeuvre and discovering that P.D. stands for Phyllis Dorothy. Let me just take a moment.

*clears throat*

Now where was I? Right. The second shock was discovering I wasn't all that impressed. I thought I liked P.D James. Have I changed or is this the Death Comes to Pemberley effect?

Anyway, I find that this was James's fifth novel. And indeed the writing is that of a sea...more

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Nov 22, 2011 Karyl rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm not usually one for mystery novels, but this one caught my eye. The story begins with the suicide of Bernie Pryde, owner of the Pryde Detective Agency, which then falls to his 22-year-old partner Cordelia Gray. Her first mystery to solve on her own involves the suicide of Mark Callender, found hanging by his neck in the cottage to which he'd recently moved to work as a gardener after dropping out of university. It was an interesting look at life in the 1970s, with characters who seem so aloo...more

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Jun 08, 2011 Alex rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's interesting when crime writers have a clear lead character that they love, and decide to branch out into a different one along similar genre lines. Val McDermid transitioned from reckless PI Kate Brannigan to impotent psychologist Tony Hill and sexually frustrated Carol Jordan, and here James transitions from the poetic detective inspector Adam Dalgliesh to the ingenue PI Cordelia Gray. You might have sensed that the two authors went in opposite directions.

A PI has the benefit of not having...more It's interesting when crime writers have a clear lead character that they love, and decide to branch out into a different one along similar genre lines. Val McDermid transitioned from reckless PI Kate Brannigan to impotent psychologist Tony Hill and sexually frustrated Carol Jordan, and here James transitions from the poetic detective inspector Adam Dalgliesh to the ingenue PI Cordelia Gray. You might have sensed that the two authors went in opposite directions.

A PI has the benefit of not having to act within the strict boundaries of the law but is limited by access to the specific details of a given case by people who don't necessarily have to say anything to them. And, when they're an ingenue, their credibility is easily called into question by other characters and readers alike.

Cordelia Gray is a 22 year old private detective thrust into solo practice by the suicide of her boss. She's almost immediately hired to investigate the reason behind the suicide of a scientist's son, and in the process discovers some of what she missed by being denied Cambridge by her Bolshie father. James' work here speeds along much faster than your typical Dalgliesh, but this is in part because there is little sense of the bigger picture commonly employed by detectives.
Gray moves at breakneck speed from one appointment to the next, gleaning information that is of some use to the reader but makes the character seem rushed. With Gray billing her client for time and itemising her costs, there is simply too much connective tissue; James painstakingly tells the reader precisely how Gray gets from place to place. The book is compact but seems slightly overstuffed.

Cordelia Gray, at least in her first outing, isn't as compelling a character as Adam Dalgliesh. Dalgliesh's brief mentions in this book prove to the reader that James considers him an invincible and overwhelming presence; it is clear that, had Dalgliesh been on the case from the start, Gray's investigation would be totally uncalled for. On top of this, Gray gets out of all of her muddles in the end through an excessively convenient string of deaths; it's strange, to say the least.

James is an author I've had a fair amount of experience with, and I can say without reservation that her later work is better than her earlier. I'll keep an eye out for more of the Gray series but I firmly believe that Dalgliesh is always going to be her more accomplished work.(less)

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Nov 26, 2009 Graceann rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Hard-core PD James fans only

Shelves: mystery

Cordelia Gray is on her own with her detective agency. She has bills to pay and no new cases in sight. Then an elegant woman turns up and asks if Miss Gray will assist in her employer's quest to determine what caused his son to kill himself.

It took me quite a long time to determine what era this book was meant to be placed in. Until Cordelia mentioned having grown up watching television, I assumed from the situations, attitudes and styles of the characters that it was somewhere between the Wars...more

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Jan 20, 2013 Luffy Monkey D. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Reading this book was a pleasure. However it did expose my lack of acute concentration, if not my imagining. There was one place in the book where I could do with some exactitude, that is the detective in the well part. Unlike many cozy, and English mystery books, there are quite some prurient quips lying about. Many of the physical traits of the supporting cast are confidently described. P.D. James is some writer.

This book is one of the least domestic crime books I've ever read. The heroine l...more Reading this book was a pleasure. However it did expose my lack of acute concentration, if not my imagining. There was one place in the book where I could do with some exactitude, that is the detective in the well part. Unlike many cozy, and English mystery books, there are quite some prurient quips lying about. Many of the physical traits of the supporting cast are confidently described. P.D. James is some writer.

This book is one of the least domestic crime books I've ever read. The heroine lives, during her investigation, in a decrepit so called cottage. But the author comes into her own element when describing Cambridge. The libraries, the churches, one graveyard, the University; all of them highly etched prosaically. The story is padded with a lot of description, but this treatment doesn't feel like butter spread too thinly on bread. It would be, had the mystery lasted 400 pages. But that's not the case. Pun unintended.

The two things P.D. James laid emphasis on were smells, and the deduction from people's eyes. Most of the characters are presented, or hinted, as intelligent. Some are not clever enough. But even the Pilbean lady who is branded as stupid had the voice of an oracle herself. The richness of the prose forces admiration from me and, I'm sure, others too. Conversely, the author knows how to turn the style on and off. During passages of tangy urgency, she loses the descriptions, and action is shown rather than told.

The main victim, Mark Callender, is a character that can be liked by some and disliked by others. I still don't know how generous, forgiving, or intelligent he was. The fact that he left his study sealed in fate. His death is pitiable, more so in its dressing and undressing. Even death here is seen differently from the characters at various points in the narrative.

I have come to new words here, like "censorious"(3 times), "prurient", "theurgy", and "deletrious". I was interested to know how the author would hide her hand. Since we are seeing the plot unravel from Cordelia's view, the solution to the problem must occur at once and not in stages. I'm glad to say that almost nothing is held from the reader. That is more admirable considering the paucity of witnesses and suspects. The truth of the case was as startling as reading this book proved to be. My first P.D. James novel; excellent.
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Jun 24, 2010 Jenn rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, mystery, read-2010

This was a great airport read. It's both a quick read and an interesting one, where James feels a need to develop her character as much as the mystery (though she also takes time to remind readers of her mainstay, Adam Dalgliesh, throughout). The book is steeped in suicides, or at least that's how it seems -- Cordelia Gray inherits a detective agency after the suicide of her partner, and is quickly called upon to investigate the circumstances of another. It's her first real case, and her inexper...more

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Apr 30, 2010 Lobstergirl rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-thriller, fiction

Here we are, it's P.D. James's fifth novel, and one would hope to see writerly progress being made. More substantial plots, more fully fleshed characters. I want James to expand beyond the stale, misanthropic souls who people her books (Dalgliesh excepted). I feel a little iconoclastic saying this, because James is one of the more revered mystery writers. "...even minor P.D. James characters are fully realized, given a pedigree, a school background and an attitude toward life," says the New York...more Here we are, it's P.D. James's fifth novel, and one would hope to see writerly progress being made. More substantial plots, more fully fleshed characters. I want James to expand beyond the stale, misanthropic souls who people her books (Dalgliesh excepted). I feel a little iconoclastic saying this, because James is one of the more revered mystery writers. "...even minor P.D. James characters are fully realized, given a pedigree, a school background and an attitude toward life," says the New York Times (in a 1997 review of a different book). Yes, they are given those things, but that hardly makes them fully realized. In fact, in P.D. James a Cambridge student who punts on the River Cam usually just becomes shorthand for a snide, blasé snob. "She writes like an angel," the London Times informs us. If so, she's a very negative and ungenerous angel. Take this description of Miss Sparshott, a temporary typist at Cordelia Gray's detective agency, who is so temporary that she is gone after 13 pages:

She was an unprepossessing woman with lips permanently taut as if to prevent the protruding teeth from springing from her mouth, a receding chin with one coarse hair which grew as quickly as it was plucked, and fair hair set in still corrugated waves. That chin and mouth seemed to Cordelia the living refutation that all men are born equal and she tried from time to time to like and sympathize with Miss Sparshott, with a life lived in bedsitting rooms, measured in the five-penny pieces fed to the gas stove and circumscribed by fell seams and hand hemming.

Ouch! Is it really necessary to be so zealously mean, especially to a character given such brief exposure? Does this vivid description tell us more about Miss Sparshott, or about P.D. James, whose books are full of pitiful women like this?

Aside from the misanthropy, the mystery is too slight. A suicide that Cordelia suspects is a murder; a young man dressed in women's lingerie and lipstick; some suspicious blood types. The plot only begins to get moderately interesting when Cordelia is tossed down a well on p. 202, and the first character who seems like a real human doesn't appear until Commander Dalgliesh in the last few pages.

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Feb 06, 2012 Joel rated it 2 of 5 stars

Having heard good things about P.D. James I had high hopes for this novel; I was disappointed. I love the placidity you get in British mysteries: Characters of all shapes almost fatalistically accept death, suspicion, attacks in the night, ribald sexuality, deception, and all other manner of human vices. If ever you witness hysterics, there's always a remedy hand, be it a strong cup of tea, a stiff drink, or a firm slap in the face. This novel gave me all that. The tone is terrifically British....more

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Jan 02, 2010 Larissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: british, crime-fiction, detective, spontaneous-reads, 2010, vicarious-travel

My first P.D. James novel (and also the first book I finished in our bright and shiny new decade), An Unsuitable Job for a Woman is precisely the type of crime novel that I can really get behind: ample backstory and character development, rich setting, sordid--but not gratuitously violent--circumstances, surprising secrets revealed (but no silly plot twists with new evil villains), and a general sense that solving the case and finding out 'what really happened' may not actually make things any b...more My first P.D. James novel (and also the first book I finished in our bright and shiny new decade), An Unsuitable Job for a Woman is precisely the type of crime novel that I can really get behind: ample backstory and character development, rich setting, sordid--but not gratuitously violent--circumstances, surprising secrets revealed (but no silly plot twists with new evil villains), and a general sense that solving the case and finding out 'what really happened' may not actually make things any better in the end. (That's a lot of key requirements to have for a novel, I know, but every so often, they are all incorporated together and the result is deeply satisfying.)

Cordelia Gray is a fully realized character, with James perhaps providing a fair amount of information about her past--that her father was "an itinerant Marxist poet and amateur revolutionary"; that she spent six years being educated in convent school by accident--which is not entirely relevant to the plot (or, actually, to our understanding of how Cordelia reacts in particular situations), but interesting and well wrought all the same. Cordelia is "a survivor" in her own words, a young woman isolated from her peers without confidants, susceptible to fear and unease and self-consciousness, but still resourceful and resilient when forced into tough situations.

She's is also ethical, but not prigish or overly moralistic, a quality which becomes vital to the plot, but is also--I think--vital to the character of a novice private eye. I personally tire equally of honor-bound vigilantes operating above the law on their righteous missions and of staunchly by-the-book police officers with a sense of obligation to the service of wholly legal justice. (Characters of the latter style, are, of course, not really in vogue these days, but are no less tiresome when they do shamble along.) At any rate, Cordelia fits somewhere in the middle of these stereotypes, and is rather fresh, fallible, and very likable for it.

Cordelia's character (and her commie background, for that matter) are part and parcel of the time and world that James has set her story in. The novel takes place in Cambridge, England in the seventies. There is a feeling in the story that a very recent sense of idealism and change has given way to a more cynical decadence. And although this cynicism is expressed in response to a variety of ideals and circumstances--justice, truthfulness, morality--this comes across particularly in Cordelia and other character's discussions of sexual relationships. Characters--particularly female characters--are sexually frank and unabashed, but overtly skeptical and not a little derisive about their experiences. We're told that Cordelia "...had never thought of virginity as other than a temporary and inconvenient state, part of the general insecurity and vulnerability of being young." Having discovered her son in a surprising sexual situation, one woman sardonically comments, "We're all sexually sophisticated these days." We're also told that Cordelia grew up with a band of hodge-podge 'comrades' for whom "sexual activities were...more a weapon of revolution or a gesture against the bourgeois mores they despised than a response to human need." This pervading sense of unromantic realism provides a useful background for the circumstances of Mark Callender's death, particularly as we learn more about his own idealism and the progressively complicated circumstances of his suicide.

I should also note that James is really a lovely prose writer--descriptive without staid embellishment, observant and lyrical while still getting to the point. Consider a passage where Cordelia is attacked later in the book (no worries--I won't say by who or why):

"She wasn't expecting trouble outside the cottage and the attack took her by surprise. There was the half-second of pre-knowledge before the blanket fell but that was too late...The movement of liberation was a miracle and a horror. The blanket was whipped off. She never saw her assailant. There was a second of sweet reviving air, a glimpse, so brief that it was barely comprehended, of blinding sky seen through greenness and then she felt herself falling, falling in helpless astonishment into cold darkness. The fall was a confusion of old nightmares, unbelievable seconds of childhood terrors recalled. Then her body hit the water. Ice-cold hands dragged her into a vortex of horror...She shook her head, and, through her stinging eyes, she looked up. The black tunnel that stretched above her ended in a moon of blue light. Even as she looked, the well lid was dragged slowly back like the shutter of a camera. The moon became a half moon; then a crescent. At last there was nothing but eight thin slits of light."

All said, this was a nice start to the year's reading, and I'll certainly pick up another James book soon.
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May 09, 2011 Tonile {My Cup and Chaucer} rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There are many wonderful things about older crime novels. Without hi-tech gadgets, in-depth forensic analysis and overly sadistic killers, the writer nearly always has to rely on incredible language and story telling skills to keep the reader engaged and excited. P D James wrote the first Adam Dalgliesh novel in 1962 and her novels continuously make best selling lists over 40 years later. I really, really enjoyed An Unsuitable Job for a Woman in so many ways - sadly it is the first of only two b...more There are many wonderful things about older crime novels. Without hi-tech gadgets, in-depth forensic analysis and overly sadistic killers, the writer nearly always has to rely on incredible language and story telling skills to keep the reader engaged and excited. P D James wrote the first Adam Dalgliesh novel in 1962 and her novels continuously make best selling lists over 40 years later. I really, really enjoyed An Unsuitable Job for a Woman in so many ways - sadly it is the first of only two books in the Cordelia Gray series, but I definitely will read more of James' Dalgliesh novels in the future.

Life for Cordelia is, in my opinion, quite wonderful. She is young, described to be quite pretty, and she is a partner in a fun but unconventional private investigation agency. This is the case until her partner Bernie unexpectedly kills himself. Not a great start to the novel. After Bernie's affairs are set in order, Cordelia receives an unexpected client. The wealthy and well-known Sir Ronald Callender's son has recently committed suicide, and Mr Callender wishes to know why his son would choose to end his life. Without many options, Cordelia accepts the case and ends up staying in the cottage the young Mr Callender lived in before he died. Cordelia's keen eye for detail reveals that certain things don't add up to suicide, and she starts to suspect foul play was involved.

This is where the novel really begins to shine. Cordelia is not a trained policewoman, nor is she a specialist in any kind of medical or legal field. Her only understanding of detection came from her unpredictable mentor and partner Bernie. She is essentially a normal, everyday person who has to make do with logic and intuition. She is sharp, sassy and knows what to ask, when to ask it, and how to interpret the ways people respond to her. Her hunt for the truth surrounding the Callender suicide takes her all over Cambridge and on a wild chase that gets her noticed by the wrong person. After a nearly fatal accident, pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place in rapid succession, leading to an explosive climax that was somewhat predictable but expertly delivered all the same.

James' stellar knowledge and use of the English language made this novel a delight to read. It is remarkably both well written and easy to understand at the same time, putting it in a well-deserved class of its own. Reading quality writing almost makes some more mainstream novels easier to handle... almost. James is a superstar in her own right and after reading An Unsuitable Job for a Woman I completely understand what the fuss is about. If all modern authors wrote half as well as this, I think the book industry would be in an incredibly different situation. There is a lot of rubbish out there. This, however, is quality literature at its finest.(less)

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Sep 17, 2009 Kate rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Mystery lovers, especially Dorothy Sayers fans.

Recommended to Kate by: Used-bookstore find.

Shelves: fiction, feminist, mystery-thriller

Great story-- it stands on its own as a novel, not just as a mystery. The mystery itself has a few flaws-- clues requiring unusual suspension of disbelief, amazing coincidences, and a couple of suspiciously convenient deaths. However, I love the moral ambiguity that runs the end of the story, the strange "intimacy" Cordelia develops with the (deceased) subject of her investigation, and how her background affects the way she handles the case. I especially liked the post-denouement crisis at the e...more

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Oct 03, 2011 Emily Tippetts rated it 4 of 5 stars

A very clever title for a book about an intelligent, self directed young woman named Cordelia with a talent for detective work who must take on her first solo case after the death of her boss. The case takes her to Cambridge, where a promising student has apparently killed himself. There are several discrepancies in this account that Cordelia must unpick. The truth looks considerably more sinister. The plot unfolds logically and systematically with skillful surprises and misleads. I am not the t...more

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Sep 25, 2012 Ifigenia rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: misterio

El primer libro que leo de la autora y dudo mucho que me acerque otra vez por voluntad propia a ella. Se me ha hecho muy pesado, a ratos me planteaba dejarlo, encima esos capítulos tan largos no me ayudaban mucho a seguir con él.

Con una prota de lo más desgraciada que acaba de "tener su primera oportunidad" tras la muerte de su compañero de toda la vida (porque no quería acabar muriendo de cáncer, sino por su mano), Cordelia, pobre, con la herencia que Bernie (su socio) le ha dejado al morirse,...more

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Aug 02, 2011 Jennifer Tucker rated it 3 of 5 stars

I understand that P.D. James is heralded as a great author and I understand that. Her reputation is what drew me to this book. However, I was underwhelmed. Maybe it is because I just got finished reading all the Dennis Lehane books about his two detectives Angie and Patrick,and his style of writing and character development drew me in completely and in my opinion was truly wonderful. It could be that James simply employs an older style of writing that may have held intensity and suspense in the...more

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Jun 28, 2009 Elizabeth K. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009-new-reads

Cordelia Grey is a young woman who finds herself the sole proprietor of a London detective agency after her business partner kills himself. Her first solo case is the investigation of the circumstances surrounding the suicide of a young Cambridge student, at the request of his father. I was a bit enthralled by how deliciously nineteen seventies everything was ... just about every single plot point in the book came back around to SEX, and most of the characters needed to point out how uninhibited...more

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May 11, 2011 Bee rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime-fiction

Cordelia Gray is a 22-year-old private detective in 1970s England. I like the character, but there were things that she did that I found difficult to believe, like sleeping in a decedent’s cottage – while that person’s belongings are still there. Aside from the fact that it’s creepy, I would think that a detective wouldn’t want to disturb the scene. There are a few other things, too, but I don’t want to spoil the novel for anyone. Cordelia seemed to get too emotionally involved with other people...more

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Jan 22, 2010 Yngvild rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman is the earlier of two P D James murder mysteries involving, Cordelia Gray, sole proprietor of Pryde’s Detective Agency. If that sounds like the start of a Girl Detective story, more Enid Blyton than P D James, that is exactly the problem.

The underlying story is interesting, unravelling the suicide of a recent university dropout by interviewing the people in his life. The difficulty is that the story is told through the eyes of a woman in her early twenties who wave...more

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About P.D. James

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P. D. James is the author of twenty books, most of which have been filmed and broadcast on television in the United States and other countries. She spent thirty years in various departments of the British Civil Service, including the Police and Criminal Law Department of Great Britain's Home Office. She has served as a magistrate and as a governor of the BBC. In 2000 she...more

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The Private Patient (Adam Dalgliesh, #14)

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“I can never see why people should be jealous. After all, youth isn't a matter of privilege, we all get the same share of it. Some people may be born at an easier time or be richer or more privileged than others, but that hasn't anything to do with being young. And being your is terrible sometimes. Don't you remember how terrible it could be?” — 0 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/365307.An_Unsuitable_Job_For_A_Woman?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1349037186l/365307.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/365307.An_Unsuitable_Job_For_A_Woman?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]An Unsuitable Job For A Woman by P.D. James[/url]

An Unsuitable Job For A Woman (Cordelia Gray #1)

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