An Unsuitable Job for a Woman

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**Title** **An Unsuitable Job For A Woman**

Author	P. D. James
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	Cordelia Grey series
Genre(s)	Mystery novel
Publisher	Faber & Faber
Released	1972
Media type	Print (Hardcover, Paperback)
Pages	287 pp
ISBN	ISBN 0-446-31517-6 (Paperback edition)
Followed by	The Skull Beneath the Skin

An Unsuitable Job For A Woman is the title of a 1972 detective novel by P. D. James.

It features Detective Cordelia Grey, the protagonist of both this title and The Skull Beneath the Skin. Cordelia inherited a detective agency and from there took on her first case.

[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

The book has been twice adapted for television. The first was in 1982 with Pippa Guard as Cordelia.

A television series starring Helen Baxendale as Cordelia and Annette Crosbie as Edith Sparshott was made in 1997 and 1999 based in part upon the book.

[edit] Plot introduction

Cordelia Gray is a young, inexperienced detective in her early twenties. She is hired by Sir Ronald Callender to shed some light on the suicide of his son, Mark Callender, a few weeks earlier. As Cordelia pieces together the facts surrounding his death, she discovers the ugly secrets of the Callender family. It soon becomes clear to her that there is more to Mark's death than meets the eye.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

One day, young sleuth Cordelia walks into the office she shares with detective Bernie Pryde to find her partner dead. He slashed his wrist after finding out he has cancer and has left everything, including his illegal gun to Cordelia. With a failing detective agency in her possession and no money, her choices are limited. Rather than go back to her former secretarial job, Cordelia decides to keep the agency in memory of Bernie. Ironically, soon after Bernie's death she has a high profile client come see her. The woman, Elizabeth Leaming, works for Sir Callender and comes to hire her on his behalf of her employer to look into the suicide of his son, Mark Callender.

Cordelia goes to Cambridge where the young man lived and studied at the prestigious university. She meets Mark's friends and immediately realizes they all share some dark secret. They are reluctant to talk to her and attempt to convince her that Mark's suicide was just that and not to look into it. She manages to get them to tell her where Mark was living and she goes visit the place.

Mark Callender had left the University in spite of having decent grades and a promising future, including a rather large inheritance from his maternal grandfather. He had then taken a job as a gardener for another rich family in Cambridge and was living in a small cottage by the property. Cordelia immediately falls in love with the run down cottage and decides to move in there herself for the length of her investigation. She starts to feel a deep connection with the dead man and is convinced it could not have been suicide.

Repeatedly, Mark's friends try to seduce her away from the investigation but Cordelia holds on, determined to succeed in her first solo case. She returns to the cottage one night to find hanging from the same hook to witch Mark hung himself a mattress in a grotesque imitation of the corpse. However, Cordelia refuses to be frightened away, now sure that foul play is involved. She goes look for pictures of the corpse and realizes that it was not possible for Mark to hang himself the way he was and that someone must have "helped" him. But who?

She finds out that there was an old woman who went, uninvited to his cremation and left a rather particular wreath. She searched all the florists in Cambridge until she finds the one where it was commissioned. She tracks down the woman "Nanny Pilbeam" who used to be Mark's mother's Nanny. The old woman confides in her and tells her that she went to see Mark in his dorm at Cambridge and gave him a Bible his mother had wanted him to have when he turned 21. The same Bible Cordelia found in the cottage. There was a note as well but Cordelia guesses correctly that it was destroyed. However, she also guesses what to look for in the Bible, the page numbered for Mark's name and his birthday. There, on the margin, she finds a cryptic note and the letters "A A" written side by side. She calls several clinics and is directed to the doctor that treated Mark Callender and his parents. She pretends to be Miss Leaming's secretary and learns that Mark's bloodtype is B while his parents are both A.

Soon after this discovery, she goes home one night and is attacked and tossed in the well by the cottage, the cover being locked behind the would-be killer. Cordelia manages to slowly and painfully climb to the top and has to wait, hoping she will be rescued. She is and terrified she realizes what a dangerous situation she has gotten herself into. She starts carrying the gun Bernie left her and hides behind some bushes to wait out for her murderer who would no doubt come back to finish the job. It is Sir Callender's lab techinician. She attempts to catch him but he flees. She follows him in her car but he hits a truck and is killed. Unable to go on, she goes to Sir Callender's house although it is night. Miss Leaming lets her in and takes her gun from her. Cordelia accuses him of the murder of his son. He laughs and attempts to pay her and have her stop her investigation. She will not. He confesses to the murder as his son was becoming a nuisance to him even though the young man had given his father his inheritance. As he is confessing to the murder, Miss Leaming enters the office and shoots him with Cordelia's gun.

She confesses to Cordelia that she was Mark's mother and that she loved him in spite of not being allowed to by Sir Callender. Lady Callender had been rich and fallen in love with Sir Callender before he was knighted for his scientific achievements. Her father however, deeply disapproved of him and refused them any money in spite of his huge fortune. However, he also desperately wanted a grandson. He decided he would give money to his daughter only if she managed to produce this grandson. Sadly, Lady Callender was infertile and sickly. Sir Callender however, had produced children with some of his many lovers and when Miss Leaming became pregnant by him, the three of them left for Italy where she passed herself for Lady Callender and submissive Lady Callender for Miss Leaming. After Miss Leaming had the child, they went back to England where they pretended the child was Lady Callender's. Cordelia sympathizes with Miss Leaming and the two, in spite of not liking each other, come up with a story to protect Miss Leaming from the police. Cordelia arranges the crime scene to look like a suicide, using eveything Bernie Pride had taught her to make is so authentic that the police believe it and the two women go free.