The Skull Beneath the Skin

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**Title** **The Skull Beneath The Skin**
Author	P. D. James
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	Cordelia Gray series
Genre(s)	Mystery novel, Crime fiction
Publisher	Faber and Faber
Released	1982
Media type	Print (Hardcover, Paperback)
Pages	384 pp
ISBN	ISBN 0571119611 (Hardback edition)
Preceded by	An Unsuitable Job for a Woman

The Skull Beneath The Skin is a 1982 detective novel by P. D. James, featuring her female private detective Cordelia Gray. The novel is set in a reconstructed Victorian castle on the fictional Courcy Island on the Dorset coast and centers around actress Clarissa Lisle who is to play John Webster's drama The Duchess of Malfi in the castle's restored theatre. It takes its title from T. S. Eliot's poem Whispers of Immortality, where Webster is famously said to be "much possessed by death" and to see "the skull beneath the skin".

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Cordelia Gray is engaged by Sir George Ralston, a baronet and World War II hero, to accompany his wife, the acclaimed actress Clarissa Lisle, for a weekend at Courcy Castle on the island of the same name on the Dorset coast. Clarissa has been receiving thinly veiled death threats in form of quotations from plays where she played the main role.

Shortly before the performance of The Duchess of Malfi, Clarissa is brutally murdered, leaving Cordelia and the Dorset CID to deal with solving the crime. In the end, it is found that she was accidentally murdered by her step son Lessing. She tried to seduce him, was rejected, so then ridiculed him. In anger, he threw a jewelry box at her. Ambrose found them like this, &, because Clarissa had been blackmailing him because of his tax evasion, agreed to help Simon cover up the crime. However, Simon begins to lose control, so Ambrose does away with him too. The end of the book is one of uncertainty. No-one has been brought to justice, however Cordelia is safe, and her life, it seems, will continue on as before.

[edit] Characters

Cordelia Gray

Cordelia Gray is the heroine/detective of the story. The book is written mainly from her point of view. Cordelia is the owner of Prydes Detective Agency (named for her old boss/mentor,Bernie Pryde, who committed suicide). Due to lack of business, she and her two staff members, Bevis & Miss Maudsley, have been reduced to finding missing pets, at which they are quite successful.

Cordelia is hired by Clarissa Lisle to solve the mystery of who is sending her threatening letters. However, when Clarissa is murdered, she takes it upon herself to solve the mystery of why and by whom she was killed.

Sir George Ralston

The last of Clarissa Lisles' many husbands. A former soldier, he has a 'dark' history on Courcy Island. He is "A little over sixty", conservative, well groomed, and formal. He employs Cordelia to relieve Clarissa's fears over the letters, more than the fact he actually wants anyone caught.

Clarissa Lisle

Clarissa is an actress with a long history of theatre work, especially in Shakespeare. Previously married three times, landing a stepson from one, Simon Lessing, at the time of her death she was married to George Ralston. Prior to her husband employing Cordelia, she had been receiving threatening letters, consisting of a verse to do with death from a play she had been in, accompanied by a crude drawing, on untraceable paper. The result of these is that she is losing her nerve on stage, which could jeopardise her career.

While not beautiful, she has great charisma, is described as having enormous power over men, being both seductive and manipulative. Her personality is dominating and demanding, though fragile from the onslaught of poison pen letters.