Crime novelist PD James, who penned more than 20 books, has died aged 94.
Her agent said she died “peacefully at her home in Oxford” on Thursday morning.
The author’s books, many featuring sleuth Adam Dalgliesh, sold millions of books around the world, with various adaptations for television and film.
Her best known novels include The Children of Men, The Murder Room and Pride and Prejudice spin-off Death Comes to Pemberley.
Thanks for posting this item. I had the good sense to throw caution to the wind this semester and teach her novel The Children of Men to my undergraduate honors students. The course is called Literature of Moral Reflection, and this book turned out to be a perfect fit. But the book has some–trigger warning–religion in it, even some Christian ritual, which it takes seriously, not cynically. Read in a group, the book worked very well. I would recommend it to any church discussion class or adult forum. But most of all: thanks, P. D. James, for your fine books and excellent character!
David, I had the pleasure of meeting Phyllis (as everybody called her) when she came to a book festival which my previous parish sponsored annually. Her attendance was quite a coup, but right from the start she put everybody at their ease despite being a peer of the realm. A gracious, natural, warm-hearted person. A person of faith. Incidentally one of her books got its title from the BCP: Devices and Desires.
Thanks; I wish I had been there!
I’ve got all of her mystery novels. They’re a bit darker than my usual taste, but so very well-written. RIP.
I posted her v good obit. from the NY Times today. I had forgotten how hard her early life really was.
I think a lot of people should take hope from the fact that her first book was published when she was 42.
She wrote beautifully.