Book description
When the notorious investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn booked
into Mr Chandler-Powell's private clinic in Dorset for the removal of
a disfiguring and long-standing facial scar, she had every prospect of
a successful operation by a distinguished surgeon, a week's peaceful
convalescence in one of Dorset's most beautiful manor houses and the
beginning of a new life. She was never to leave Cheverell Manor alive.
Dalgliesh and his team are called in to investigate the murder, and
later a second death, which are to raise even more complicated
problems than the question of innocence or guilt. A new detective
novel by P. D. James is always keenly awaited and The Private Patient
will undoubtedly equal the success of her worldwide bestseller The
Lighthouse. It displays the qualities which P. D. James's readers have
come to expect: a masterly psychological and emotional richness of
characterisation, a vivid evocation of place and a credible and
exciting mystery. The Private Patient is a powerful work of
contemporary fiction.
P. D. James was born in Oxford in 1920 and educated at Cambridge
High School for Girls. From 1949 to 1968 she worked in the National
Health Service and subsequently in the Home Office, first in the
Police Department and later in the Criminal Policy Department. All
that experience has been used in her novels. She is a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Literature and of the Royal Society of Arts and has
served as a Governor of the BBC, a member of the Arts Council, where
she was Chairman of the Literary Advisory Panel, on the Board of the
British Council and as a magistrate in Middlesex and London. She has
won awards for crime writing in Britain, America, Italy and
Scandinavia, including the Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster
Award. She has received honorary degrees from seven British
universities, was awarded an OBE in 1983 and was created a life peer
in 1991. In 1997 she was elected President of the Society of Authors.
She lives in London and Oxford and has two daughters, five
grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
