Shroud for a Nightingale [Paperback]

"People" P. D. James is "the greatest living mystery writer." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'The greatest contemporary writer of classic crime.' Peter Kemp, Sunday Times 'P. D. James is one of the national treasures of British fiction... Each new book gives pleasure not just for macabre crimes or ingenious solutions but its density of experience.' Malcolm Bradbury, Mail on Sunday 'Unlike so many crime writers, James still has the power to move, fascinate and astonish.' Independent 'James... manages to invest even a simple mystery novel with a depth and intelligence that few in her trade can match.' The Times

Stunning paperback repackages celebrating the world's pre-eminent crime writer and over forty years of detective fiction. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

The young women of Nightingale House are there to learn to nurse and comfort the suffering. But when one of the students plays patient in a demonstration of nursing skills, she is horribly, brutally killed. Another student dies equally mysteriously and it is up to Adam Dalgliesh to unmask a killer who has decided to prescribe murder as the cure for all ills.

'Plenty of scrupulously laid false trails, credible detectives and a totally unexpected ending.' Sunday Telegraph

'James . . . manages to invest even a simple mystery novel with a depth and intelligence that few in her trade can match.' The Times

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 is an Honorary Bencher of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. She has won awards for crime writing in Britain, America, Italy and Scandinavia, including the Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award and the National Arts Club Medal of Honor for Literature (US). 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 eight great-grandchildren.