An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P.D. James

A very nice, very British, mystery novel.

I had read several P.D. James novels prior to this one, The Children of Men & Innocent Blood, and liked them immensely so I bought several others at a discount book store near my old office (this book has been sitting in my house for at least a year). Didn't realize this was the 1st of a series (Cordelia Gray Mysteries), or that it was a supplemental series to another larger series (the Adam Dalgliesh books).

I enjoyed this book a lot. It is very interesting to follow someone who doesn't really know what they are doing, in a professional sense not in an incompetent sense, try to investigate a suspicious death using just her wits and the axioms of a dead investigator. As is always the case, things are not as they originally seem once Cordelia heads to Cambridge and begins her investigation. In Cordelia, we have the absolute outsider seemingly trying to find her way in world, but also performing a job that will serve to continue to isolate her from everyone else -it is hard to make friends with people if you open with questions about where they were when their friend died. Again this is another book that no one that matters makes it out cleanly.

I am also in the middle of Netflixing the TV series made about this show, starring Emily from Friends, Helen Baxendale. It isn't bad, but apparently P.D. James has dissociated herself from it since they changed he character a lot from the one in the books when they wrote in Helen's pregnancy. This might be why she stopped after 2 Cordelia Gray books.

Book can be found here (I didn't buy it here):
http://www.amazon.com/Unsuitable-Woman-Cordelia-Gray-Mysteries/dp/0743219554/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230518018&sr=1-1

3 down, 97 to go. Finished 12/26/2008.

This post was written listening to and watching Iron Chef America