SOURCE: "On the Case of the Baroness," in Observer Review, October 16, 1994, p. 19.

In the following interview, Kellaway discusses with James setting, the enjoyment of detective fiction, and research.

In P D James's outstanding new novel, Original Sin, set in London, she writes about buildings with detailed attention, as if they were suspects. Her imagination is a zealous architect. Original Sin is dominated by a stupendous, white pseudo-Venetian edifice by the Thames, occupied by a publishing company and called, with stark irony, Innocent House. She says: 'Houses betray character so clearly, they really do.'

Her house in Holland Park, built in 1830, is grand and green with white slatted shutters, a square, reliable face with a faded burglar alarm on the wall. Baroness James of Holland Park is small, vigorously intelligent and benign (she addresses me soothingly as 'dear').

We settle in her sitting room on a sofa, upholstered...