In the following essay, Sizemore analyzes the role of London, with its mosaic of villages and people, in James's fiction, especially A Taste for Death and Innocent Blood.

In the following essay, Richardson delineates the common symbolism and imagery between T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land and James's A Taste for Death and asserts that work is still meaningful to readers who do not recognize the influence.

In the following interview, James discusses how her novels differ from those of the traditional detective genre, and the inspiration behind her characters and plots.

In the following essay, Symons discusses James's new book, A Taste for Death, and talks to the author about her life and writing in the detective genre.

In the following review, Mantel complains that the detective genre is too confining for James's talent.

In the following essay, Hubly analyzes the character of Adam Dalgliesh as a Byronic hero.

In the following interview, James discusses her approach to crafting a mystery, her view on feminism, and how she wants to be remembered.

In the following review, Crist lauds James's vivid characters, evocation of place, and risk-taking in Devices and Desires.

In the following review, Wangerin discusses the two adventures in James's The Children of Men.

There are two novels fighting for dominance within the covers of Innocent Blood. One of them is rooted—just—in the everyday world; the other capers about in that no man's land to which Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, and Dorothy L. Sayers made such frequent excursions. The former conveys something of the messiness involved in being human; the latter looks at crime through a dusty lorgnette. For most of the book, the two go their separate ways, but every so often they merge—wi...

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

P. D. James is a mystery writer who with [Innocent Blood] has abandoned mystery. She began as a writer of orthodox detective stories in the English tradition. Her first book, Cover Her Face, opened with a tea party, and offered fairly conventional characters in a rural setting. But this book and its immediate successors seem not to have satisfied her, and in Shroud For a Nightingale (1971) she used her professional knowledge as a hospital administrator to give a realistic portrait of the Nightingale Trainin...

In the following review, Sallis argues that James fails in her intentions in The Children of Men.

P. D. James is a writer of sophisticated English mystery stories, the sort of books that abound with an intelligence the reader feels complementary to his own. Those who delight in such fiction do not ask for emotional depth or intensity of style, but for the reassurance that, even in a world of murder, insanity and intrigue, a civilized logic can prevail. Surely, a quiet dose of superior murder mystery is one of the liveliest, least sinful of addictions. In "Innocent Blood," Miss James has wr...

In the following review, Hughes praises the first part of James's The Children of Men as "fascinating stuff," but complains that the narrative of the second section "begins to droop."

In the following excerpt, Wood asserts that James's Devices and Desires "is a thriller and a detective novel."

"He ought to be writing thrillers," reflects the heroine of "Innocent Blood" about the novel's putative villain. "He had the mind of a thriller writer, obsessive, guilt-ridden, preoccupied with trivia. He had lived too long with thoughts of death." Whether or not this derogatory judgment is shared by the author of "Innocent Blood," it is certainly consistent with what she has done in her latest novel. For after writing seven detective thrillers ...

P. D. James's first omnibus volume ["Crime Times Three: 'Cover Her Face', 'A Mind to Murder' and 'Shroud For a Nightingale'"] will make clear why this English writer is cutting such a sure and distinctive way in a crowded field. Her style is what we think of as typically British. Her writing is ample, leisurely and full of loving descriptions of house and countryside. There is, in fact, a certain 19th-century ease to her books, as if she were in...

There are a number of good things to be said about … P. D. James, but that she is a "new Agatha Christie" is not one of them…. I'm not even sure if James is a "queen of crime," as a further bit of well-meaning puffery proclaims her. However, she is without doubt one of the genre's noblewomen, and if there's anyone her oeuvre does call to mind, it's a fine author whose own place at court is secure: the late Elizabeth Mackintosh, or Josephi...

Trouble with really good writers is that they sometimes can get so involved with techniques and style that they tend to forget the raison d'être of the crime novel. So it is with "The Black Tower."… Mrs. James is an exceedingly good writer, and her detective, Adam Dalgliesh, is one of the more unusual ones in action today. Nevertheless, "The Black Tower" is so slow-moving that it will try the patience of most readers—and that has to be the besetting si...

To prove that the British mystery in the grand [Dorothy] Sayers line is not altogether dead, there is P. D. James's "Shroud For a Nightingale."… Mrs. James works in the old tradition. She takes all the time in the world to establish her plot, her people and her locale. False clues are liberally seeded. The author goes into the background of the characters. Some are literate in the best British tradition…. Mrs. James's style is ultracivilized, and "Shroud for ...