Cover Her Face (1962) by P.D. James Headstrong and beautiful, the young housemaid Sally Jupp is put rudely in her place, strangled in her bed behind a bolted door. Coolly brilliant policeman Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard must find her killer among a houseful of suspects, most of whom had very good reason to wish her ill.

Cover Her Face is P. D. James's electric debut novel, an ingeniously plotted

mystery that immediately placed her among the masters of suspense.

For a plot summary (spoiler alert!) read the Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_Her_Face

About the author P.D. James was born in Oxford, England, on August 3, 1920. She began working as a civil servant at age 16 through marriage and motherhood, and began writing mystery novels in her late 30s. By the time she retired to write full-time, she had become famous as the creator of fictional detective Adam Dalgliesh. James also wrote the novels Children of Men and Death Comes to Pemberley. James died on November 27, 2014 at the age of 94.

Phyllis Dorothy James, best known as P.D. James, was born on August 3, 1920, in Oxford, England, to Sidney Victor and Dorothy May Amelia (Hone) James. She was the oldest of three children. Her father worked as a tax officer for the Inland Revenue department. Her mother, who encouraged the children to read at an early age, suffered so severely from mental illness that she was eventually institutionalized. James attended schools in Ludlow and Cambridge, but her formal education ended when she was 16 years old and she went to work in a tax office.

In 1941, at the age of 21, P.D. James married medical student Ernest Connor Bantry White. The couple had two daughters, Clara (born in 1942) and Jane (born in 1944). James's husband served in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the Second World War. However, after the war he was so incapacitated by schizophrenia that he was unable to work and required frequent hospitalization until his death in 1964.

In order to support her family, James studied hospital administration and went to work for the National Health Service, where she would remain through 1968. She then took a civil service exam and began working in the government's home office, where she eventually held a position as a senior employee in the Criminal Policy Department from 1972 to '79.

In the meantime, James had achieved her ambition of becoming a professional writer. She wrote her first novel, a detective story titled Cover Her Face, in the evenings and during her daily commute. It was published under the name "P.D. James" in 1962, and it introduced the character of Adam Dalgliesh, a detective with a calm, introspective manner and a talent for writing poetry.

Dubbed the "Queen of Crime," James went on to write 13 more Dalgliesh murder mysteries. Many of them were set in enclosed communities, illuminating the tensions and violence that can erupt amongst tightly knit groups of people. Shroud for a Nightingale, published in 1971, is set at a nursing school, and Original Sin (1994) at a small publishing house in London; Death in Holy Orders (2001) probes the motives behind a killing at a theological college, and the final Dalgliesh mystery, The Private Patient (published in 2008), unfolds at a private plastic surgery clinic in an English manor house.

James also wrote two mystery novels featuring a female detective, Cordelia Gray: An Unsuitable Job for a Woman and The Skull Beneath the Skin.

Other interesting information: Written interview: http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1627/the-art-of-fiction-no-141-p-d-james Video talk: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturevideo/booksvideo/7885093/Ways-With-Words-P.D.-James-on-the-enduring-appeal-of-crime-fiction.html Watch the TV mini series here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv_PfBEdh_Q Topics for Discussion

1. Is Sally a victim, or is she a manipulative young woman who twists situations and people to her advantage?

2. Who feels most threatened by Sally? 3. Do you think PD James was already thinking about an Adam Dalgleish

series when she wrote this novel? 4. What is more important to PD James as a writer, personality and

motivation or the crime puzzle itself?