Miss P. D. James is the leading present-day practitioner of the feminine character novel that is also a detective story.
By and large she is, indeed, the only member of her clan who has substantial claims to rank alongside [Dorothy] Sayers and [Margery] Allingham. She writes and plots, usually, with a gem-like clarity that compels both attention and admiration. Unfortunately in [An Unsuitable Job For a Woman] the gem is flawed. Private detection is indeed no job for the dear little thing who is employed to uncover the motives behind the apparent suicide of a likeable dropout. The atmosphere of suspicion and brooding violence surrounding a Cambridge clique of trendy youths is excellently conveyed, the background and switching scenes are handled with the same impeccable skill as ever. One is about to hail a minor masterpiece of the genre when, suddenly, the whole carefully constructed edifice collapses into an unlikely solution and an unsatisfactory aftermath. It looks, for once, like too-hasty plotting and one has, too, the horrible suspicion that Miss James is about to commit the cardinal sin of falling in love with her great detective. Let her beware and take thought of Miss Sayers who did just that and neither she nor Wimsey were ever the same afterwards.
John Welcome, "Quick and the Dead," in The Spectator (© 1972 by The Spectator; reprinted by permission of The Spectator), Vol. 229, No. 7539, December 23, 1972, p. 1011.
This is a free excerpt of 238 words. There are 242 words (approx.
1 page at 300 words per page) in the full critical essay.
Read the rest of this Criticism with our James, P(hyllis) D(orothy) 1920–: Critical Essay by John Welcome Access Pass.
