JAMES’ LAST MYSTERY
Final novel not completed
P.D. James may have left one last mystery for her fans — one that may never be solved.
The acclaimed British crime writer was planning one final detective novel.
In one of her final interviews, James said she would stop writing “when I come to a stop, too.” She died Thursday at her home in Oxford, at age 94.
About a year ago, she disclosed plans to write one last work of crime fiction.
“What I am working on now will be another detective story. It does seem important to write one more,” she said.
“I am lucky to have written as many books as I have, really, and it has been a joy. With old age, it becomes very difficult. It takes longer for the inspiration to come, but the thing about being a writer is that you need to write.”
It appears likely the book was not completed.
Her literary agent, Carol Heaton, said: “As far as I know, it was very much in her head, but I don’t think she got very far. I certainly haven’t seen it.”
Heaton said it was “extremely unlikely” a publishable manuscript would come to light.”
James had a fear of leaving an unfinished manuscript. To do so would be “intolerable,” she once said.
She was also firmly of the belief that if her story were not up to standard she would not submit it for publication.
Her most famous character is Adam Dalgliesh, a poetry-writing policeman from Scotland Yard, introduced in the 1962 novel Cover Her Face.
His 14th and final appearance comes in The Private Patient in 2008.
James published her latest novel, Death Comes to Pemberley, in 2011. It is a murder-mystery sequel to Pride and Prejudice, combining her two great literary passions — crime fiction and Jane Austen. The BBC adapted the story for television last Christmas.
News of her death prompted a flurry of tributes from fellow authors, including crime writers Ian Rankin, Val McDermid and Ruth Rendell.
Rendell, a close friend, said: “She was wonderfully accurate in her police work. She really took great pains about it. She did not make mistakes. She saw to it that she didn’t.”
Rankin praised James for her “sharp intellect” and “ready wit.”
McDermid said Thursday: “Today, I’ve lost a friend as well as a teacher. There was nothing cosy about (James).”
Mark Thompson, then directorgeneral of the BBC, discovered that in 2009 when he agreed to be interviewed by James on Radio 4.
Drawing on her time as a BBC governor, James accused him of presiding over a corporation rife with ageism, dreadful programs and executives paid “vast sums of money.”
Another author and friend, A.S. Byatt, said James was successful because her crime novels were rooted in reality.
“When people in her books died, the other characters’ lives changed, as they would in real life,” Byatt said.
James “was working with real people that she cared about.”