Site icon The Thrilling Detective Web Site

Cordelia Gray

kevinburtonsmith

Created by P.D. James
(1920–2014)

“She wanted to appear efficient, but not too efficient.”
— Cordelia in An Unsuitable Job for a Woman

A far cry fromt G.G. Fickling’s Honey West or Carter Brown’s Mavis Seidlitz. One of the true Grand Dames of Mystery Fiction, P.D. James should get credit for also creating the modern female P. I. when she unleashed young, twenty-two year old CORDELIA GRAY upon an unsuspecting world. Cordelia, the convent-raised child of a would-be revolutionary, inherits a shabby detective agency when her mentor, Bernie Pryde, commits suicide. Instead of selling it off for a quick profit as everyone expects her to, she decides to keep it going, despite it being “an unsuitable job for a woman,” the title of P.D. James 1972 novel (and a possible tip of the hat to James Rubel’s No Business For a Lady, which also featured a female private eye?).

Shy, lacking in confidence, and unworldly, Cordelia at first makes for an unlikely and at times cringe-worthy private detective, having no real training or experience (she had only been there for two months when her boss died). But still waters do indeed run deep in Cordelia’s case. She’s certainly not hard-boiled, and at times the novel scans like a particularly idiotic gothic romance, but as the book progresses, and our heroine learns the ropes and begins to better understand herself, it turns out Cordelia is exactly the right woman for the job; resourceful, pragmatic and one hell of a detective. Which is why it’s a shame James doesn’t get the credit she deserves, despite paving the way for younger sisters such as Sharon McCone (1977), Anna Lee (1980), V.I. Warshawski (1982) and Kinsey Millhone (1982.

The first novel did generate a certain amount of attention, and inspired an atmospheric British film adaptation in 1982, coincidentally about the same time a second book, The Skull Beneath the Skin, was published, with Cordelia reduced to looking for lost pets. The film, while well received, never really garnered the audience it deserved, either in Britain or in the States. However, fifteen years later, a new British and American-produced made-for-television film based on An Unsuitable Job for a Woman appeared, starring Helen Baxendale as Cordelia, which served as a pilot for a string of further episodes.

Unfortunately, those sequels were based on original scripts by other writers, not on anything written by PD James. One plot development in particular upset fans — when the previously virginal Cordeilia’s unexpectedly became pregnant, after a brief and uncharacteristic Italian fling. As well as coping with carrying a child, Cordelia found herself having to cope with her well-meaning, but overly-protective office assistant, Mrs. Sparshott, who insists on taking a more active role in the cases that come their way, due to her boss’s “condition.”

Author P.D. James is one of the mystery genre’s most well-respected authors, and the creator of Adam Dalgliesh, the moody, book-loving police detective (and not a private eye, but we won’t hold that against her.) She seems to have some spunk to her credit, too. James reportedly was so taken aback by the ITV/PBS TV series from the late nineties that she said she’d never write another book with Cordelia, in case those cretins get a hand on it. That’s no way to treat a Lady. Or a Dame.

TRIVIA

UNDER OATH

NOVELS

FILM

TELEVISION

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.

Exit mobile version