P.D. James dies at age 94

I was very sad to hear P.D. James had died,  but she had an extraordinary life and was a very special person.  Apparently she was writing another mystery.  She commented that she didn't think she could not write.   Jim and I both loved her novels and were thrilled last year when we picked up "Innocent Blood" at a library book sale and realized it was the one novel we hadn't read…we thought we had read everything!    I read today that this was her 8th novel and the one that made the huge breakthrough.   Her novels were much much more than just mysteries…always insightful and dealing with important issues.

I wrote to P.D. James twice and received a lovely reply each time.  The second time she sent me an email as a reply.   We saw her read in Victoria a number of years ago and I was particularly impressed by her honest pleasure and joy at answering questions from the audience.  She made it seem like every question was just exactly what she wanted to be asked and was thrilled to do so.

My dear friend,  Patty,  introduced me to PD.  I had disdained mysteries but got into them one year when we were vacationing in Puerto Vallarta when Richard was around 10 yrs. old.  We were both exhausted and weren't up to much other than lying on the beach.  Richard was bored so he chose an Agatha Christie mystery from the hotel gift shop to read.  He read it in a day so I ended up buying pretty much one a day for him since it kept him occupied.  They were on the expensive side so to get my money's worth I began to read them.  I wasn't really up to reading any of the "serious" books I had brought along.  I rather enjoyed them and could see why people liked mysteries.  When I mentioned this to Patty,  she said I must read a really good mystery  writer, PD James….and I was hooked.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/novelist-pd-james-dies-at-age-94/article21808768/