The Skull Beneath the Skin
by P. D James
- Used
- Paperback
- Condition
- used - excellent/none - paperback
- ISBN 10
- 0722151888
- ISBN 13
- 9780722151884
- Seller
-
Oakville, Ontario, Canada
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
This book has been used, minor wear to covers, minor pencil marking first inner page by previous owner. No other markings inner pages, spine intact, some creases. "Private detective Cordelia Gray is invited to the sunlit island of Courcy to protect the vainly beautiful actress Clarissa Lisle from veiled threats on her life. Within the rose red walls of a fairy-tale castle, she finds the stage is set for death." Good Reads "P. D. James, byname of Phyllis Dorothy James White, Baroness James of Holland Park, (born August 3, 1920, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England—died November 27, 2014, Oxford), British mystery novelist best known for her fictional detective Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard.
The daughter of a middle-grade civil servant, James grew up in the university town of Cambridge. Her formal education, however, ended at age 16 because of lack of funds, and she was thereafter self-educated. In 1941 she married Ernest C.B. White, a medical student and future physician, who returned home from wartime service mentally deranged and spent much of the rest of his life in psychiatric hospitals. To support her family (which included two children), she took work in hospital administration and, after her husband's death in 1964, became a civil servant in the criminal section of the Department of Home Affairs. Her first mystery novel, Cover Her Face (1962), introduced Dalgliesh and was followed by six more mysteries before she retired from government service in 1979 to devote full time to writing.
Dalgliesh, James's master detective who rises from chief inspector in the first novel to chief superintendent and then to commander, is a serious, introspective person, moralistic yet realistic. The novels in which he appears are peopled by fully rounded characters, who are civilized, genteel, and motivated. The public resonance created by James's singular characterization and deployment of classic mystery devices led to most of the novels featuring Dalgliesh being filmed for television. James, who earned the sobriquet "Queen of Crime," penned 14 Dalgliesh novels, with the last, The Private Patient, appearing in 2008.
James also wrote An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972) and The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982), which centre on Cordelia Gray, a young private detective. The first of these novels was the basis for both a television movie and a short-lived series. James expanded beyond the mystery genre in The Children of Men (1992; film 2006), which explores a dystopian world in which the human race has become infertile. Her final work, Death Comes to Pemberley (2011)—a sequel to Pride and Prejudice (1813)—amplifies the class and relationship tensions between Jane Austen's characters by situating them in the midst of a murder investigation. James's nonfiction works include The Maul and the Pear Tree (1971), a telling of the Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811 written with historian T.A. Critchley, and the insightful Talking About Detective Fiction (2009). Her memoir, Time to Be in Earnest, was published in 2000. She was made OBE in 1983 and was named a life peer in 1991." Good Reads
Synopsis
A Cordelia Gray MysteryHired to protect a beautiful but neurotic actress, Cordelia Gray soon becomes embroiled in a case as dangerous to her own life as it is mysterious.Clarissa Lisle hopes to make a spectacular comeback in a production of The Duchess of Malfi, to be played in Ambrose Gorringe's sinister castle at Courcy Island. Cordelia is there to ensure her safety following the appearance of a number of poison-pen letters. But it soon becomes clear that all are in danger. Trapped within the walls of the Gothic castle, the treacherous past of the island re-emerges, and everyone seems to have a motive for sending Clarissa 'down, down to hell'.Marking the return of Cordelia Gray, The Skull beneath the Skin is a complex mystery which more than lives up to its predecessor, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Ohkwaho Books and Fine Art (CA)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 591-2023
- Title
- The Skull Beneath the Skin
- Author
- P. D James
- Format/Binding
- Fiction, Mystery, Thriller
- Book Condition
- used - excellent
- Jacket Condition
- none - paperback
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Binding
- Paperback
- ISBN 10
- 0722151888
- ISBN 13
- 9780722151884
- Publisher
- Sphere Books
- Place of Publication
- London
- Date Published
- 1983
- Pages
- 372
- Size
- 17.6 cm x 10.5 cm
- Keywords
- Fiction, Mystery, Thriller
Terms of Sale
Ohkwaho Books and Fine Art
About the Seller
Ohkwaho Books and Fine Art
About Ohkwaho Books and Fine Art
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....