P D James

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Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, OBE, FRSA, FRSL (born 3 August 1920) is an English writer of crime fiction, under the name P. D. James, and is a life peer in the British House of Lords. James did not begin writing until she reached her thirties. Her first novel, Cover Her Face, featuring the investigator/poet Adam Dalgliesh of New Scotland Yard, was published in 1962. She has said that her influences include Jane Austen, Dorothy L. Sayers (herself a well-known British author of mysteries), Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh. Many of James's mystery novels take place against the backdrop of Britain's vast bureaucracies such as the criminal justice system and the health services, arenas in which James honed her skills for decades starting in the 1940s when she went to work in hospital administration to help support her ailing husband and two children. Two years after the publication of Cover Her Face, James's husband died and she took a position as a civil servant within the criminal section of the Department of Home Affairs. James worked in government service until her retirement in 1979, and her many years of experience within these bureaucracies add a complex stratum of insider's knowledge to her writing. Her 2001 work, Death in Holy Orders, displays an insightful grasp of the inner workings of church hierarchy: she is a devout Anglican, and this comes through in many of her works. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA Li

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