Crime novelist P.D. James dies at 94
(Image credit: Facebook.com/PDJamesAuthor)

P.D. James, the British crime novelist behind works like Innocent Blood, The Children of Men, and Death Comes to Pemberly, has died of undisclosed causes. She was 94.

James leaves behind a legacy of 19 novels and several works of non-fiction. Fourteen of her novels centered on Scotland Yard commander Adam Dalgliesh, her most enduring protagonist, who was introduced in 1962's Cover Her Face and last appeared in 2008's The Private Patient.

In a recent interview with The Paris Review, James explained why she spent her career writing crime novels. "A detective story is very easy to write badly but difficult to write well," she said. "There is so much you have to fit into eighty or ninety-thousand words — not just creating a puzzle, but an atmosphere, a setting, characters... Then when the first one worked, I continued, and I came to believe that it is perfectly possible to remain within the constraints and conventions of the genre and be a serious writer, saying something true about men and women and their relationships and the society in which they live."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Scott Meslow

Scott Meslow is the entertainment editor for TheWeek.com. He has written about film and television at publications including The Atlantic, POLITICO Magazine, and Vulture.