P. D. James has 15 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 15 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 373 ratings. The most-rated is P. D. James BBC Radio Drama Collection.
P. D. James BBC Radio Drama Collection
Summary
Seven BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisations of P. D. James' acclaimed mysteries, plus P. D. James in Her Own Words. This collection includes: Cover Her Face P. D. James' debut novel, introducing her famous detective Adam Dalgliesh. Starring Robin Ellis as Dalgliesh. A Taste for Death Dalgliesh investigates when two bodies are found murdered a London church. Starring Richard Derrington as Dalgliesh. Devices and Desires Dalgliesh hunts a serial killer in desolate Norfolk. Starring Robin Ellis as Dalgliesh. A Certain Justice Dalgliesh probes the murder of a brilliant criminal lawyer. Starring Philip Franks as Dalgliesh. The Private Patient Dalgliesh investigates a high-profile murder at an exclusive cosmetic surgery clinic. Starring Richard Derrington as Dalgliesh. An Unsuitable Job for a Woman An eminent scientist hires Detective Cordelia Gray to discover why his son committed suicide. Starring Judi Bowker as Cordelia Gray. The Skull Beneath the Skin With her life in danger, actress Clarissa Lisle turns to private detective Cordelia Gray. Starring Greta Scacchi as Cordelia Gray. Among the supporting cast in these classic dramas are Siân Phillips, Hugh Grant, Anna Massey and Geraldine James. Also included is a bonus audio documentary, P. D. James in Her Own Words, in which the author discusses her professional career and private life.
©2018 BBC Worldwide Ltd (P)2018 BBC Worldwide Ltd
Cover Her Face
Summary
P. D. James is “the greatest living mystery writer”. (People) 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' electric debut novel, an ingeniously plotted mystery that immediately placed her among the masters of suspense.
©1992 P. D. James (P)2008 Books on Tape
A Taste for Death
Summary
When the quiet Little Vestry of St. Matthew's Church becomes the blood-soaked scene of a double murder, Scotland Yard Commander Adam Dalgliesh faces an intriguing conundrum: How did an upper-crust Minister come to lie, slit throat to slit throat, next to a neighborhood derelict of the lowest order? Challenged with the investigation of a crime that appears to have endless motives, Dalgliesh explores the sinister web spun around a half-burnt diary and a violet-eyed widow who is pregnant and full of malice -all the while hoping to fill the gap of logic that joined these two disparate men in bright red death. . . .
©2007 PD James (P)2009 Random House Audio
Death Comes to Pemberley
Summary
A rare meeting of literary genius: P. D. James, long among the most admired mystery writers of our time, draws the characters of Jane Austen’s beloved novel Pride and Prejudice into a tale of murder and emotional mayhem. It is 1803, six years since Elizabeth and Darcy embarked on their life together at Pemberley, Darcy’s magnificent estate. Their peaceful, orderly world seems almost unassailable. Elizabeth has found her footing as the chatelaine of the great house. They have two fine sons, Fitzwilliam and Charles. Elizabeth’s sister Jane and her husband, Bingley, live nearby; her father visits often; there is optimistic talk about the prospects of marriage for Darcy’s sister Georgiana. And preparations are under way for their much-anticipated annual autumn ball. Then, on the eve of the ball, the patrician idyll is shattered. A coach careens up the drive carrying Lydia, Elizabeth’s disgraced sister, who with her husband, the very dubious Wickham, has been banned from Pemberley. She stumbles out of the carriage, hysterical, shrieking that Wickham has been murdered. With shocking suddenness, Pemberley is plunged into a frightening mystery. Inspired by a lifelong passion for Austen, P. D. James masterfully re-creates the world of Pride and Prejudice, electrifying it with the excitement and suspense of a brilliantly crafted crime story, as only she can write it.
©2011 P. D. James (P)2011 Random House Audio
Devices and Desires
Summary
Featuring the famous Commander Adam Dalgliesh, Devices and Desires is a thrilling and insightfully crafted novel of fallible people caught in a net of secrets, ambitions, and schemes on a lonely stretch of Norfolk coastline. Commander Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard has just published a new book of poems and has taken a brief respite from publicity on the remote Larksoken headland on the Norfolk coast in a converted windmill left to him by his aunt. But he cannot so easily escape murder. A psychotic strangler of young women is at large in Norfolk, and getting nearer to Larksoken with every killing. And when Dalgliesh discovers the murdered body of the Acting Administrative Officer on the beach, he finds himself caught up in the passions and dangerous secrets of the headland community and in one of the most baffling murder cases of his career.
©2005 P. D. James (P)2012 Random House Audio
The Private Patient
Summary
Cheverell Manor is a lovely old house in deepest Dorset, now a private clinic belonging to the famous plastic surgeon George Chandler-Powell. When investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn arrived there one late autumn afternoon, scheduled to have a disfiguring and long-standing facial scar removed, she had every expectation of a successful operation and a pleasant week recuperating. Two days later she was dead, the victim of murder. To Commander Adam Dalgliesh, who with his team is called in to investigate the case, the mystery at first seems absolute. Few things about it make sense. Yet as the detectives begin probing the lives and backgrounds of those connected with the dead woman the surgeon, members of the manor staff, close acquaintances suspects multiply all too rapidly. New confusions arise, including strange historical overtones of madness and a lynching 350 years in the past. Then there is a second murder, and Dalgliesh finds himself confronted by issues even more challenging than innocence or guilt. P. D. James has gained an enviable reputation for creating detective stories of uncommon depth and intricacy, combined with the sort of humanity and perceptiveness found only in the finest novelists. The Private Patient ranks among her very best.
©2008 P.D. James (P)2008 Random House Audio
Shroud for a Nightingale
Summary
P. D. James is “the greatest living mystery writer.” (People) 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 of Scotland Yard to unmask a killer who has decided to prescribe murder as the cure for all ills. The New York Times called Shroud for a Nightingale “mystery at its best.”
©2002 P.D. James (P)2008 Books on Tape
A Mind to Murder
Summary
Award-winning author P. D. James' second mystery in her best-selling series featuring Scotland Yard investigator Adam Dalgliesh is now available on CD! When the administrative head of the Steen Psychiatric Clinic is found dead with a chisel in her heart, Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard is called in to investigate. Dalgliesh must analyze the deep-seated anxieties and thwarted desires of patients and staff alike to determine which of their unresolved conflicts resulted in murder. Widely acknowledged as "the greatest contemporary writer of classic crime" (The London Sunday Times), P. D. James received the Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award for long-term achievement in 1999. “…a superbly satisfying mystery." (Chicago Daily News)
©2008 P.D. James (P)2008 Books on Tape
Death of an Expert Witness
Summary
An evil-tempered forensic scientist is put to death, putting many of his colleagues out of misery. Dr. Lorrimer appeared to be the picture of a bloodless, coldly efficient scientist. Only when his brutally slain body is discovered and his secret past dissected does the image begin to change. Once again, Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh learns that there is more to human beings than meets the eye and more to solving a murder than the obvious clues.
©2001 P.D. James (P)2008 Random House
Unnatural Causes
Summary
Award-winning author P. D. James third mystery in her best-selling series featuring Scotland Yard investigator Adam Dalgliesh is now available on CD! Maurice Seton was a famous mystery writer - but no murder from his imagination could equal the ghastliness of his own death. When his grotesquely mutilated corpse is found in a drifting dinghy, ripples of horror spread among his bizarre neighbors: the cruel and cynical drama critic, the celebrated recluse, and the rakish young heir. It is up to Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh and his extraordinary aunt to discover the shocking truth about Seton's past - before the plot takes another murderous turn.
©2001 P.D. James (P)2008 Books on Tape
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman
Summary
P. D. James is “the reigning mistress of murder.” (Time) Handsome Cambridge dropout Mark Callender died hanging by the neck with a faint trace of lipstick on his mouth. When the official verdict is suicide, his wealthy father hires fledgling private investigator Cordelia Gray to find out what led him to self-destruction. What she discovers instead is a twisting trail of secrets and sins, and the strong scent of murder. An Unsuitable Job for a Woman introduces P. D. James’s courageous but vulnerable young detective, Cordelia Gray, in a “top-rated puzzle of peril that holds you all the way” (The New York Times).
©2001 P.D. James (P)2008 Books on Tape
Innocent Blood
Summary
Adopted as a child into a privileged family, Philippa Palfrey fantasizes that she is the daughter of an aristocrat and a parlor maid. The terrifying truth about her parents and a long-ago murder is only the first in a series of shocking betrayals. Philippa quickly learns that those who delve into the secrets of the past must be on guard when long-buried horrors begin to stir.
©2001 P.D. James (P)2009 Random House
The Skull Beneath the Skin
Summary
Private detective Cordelia Gray is invited to the sunlit island of Courcy to protect the vainly beautiful actress Clarissa Lisle from veiled threats on her life. Within the rose red walls of a fairy-tale castle, she finds the stage is set for death.
©2001 P.D. James (P)2009 Random House
The Black Tower
Summary
Just recovered from a grave illness, Commander Adam Dalgliesh is called to the bedside of an elderly priest. When Dalgliesh arrives, Father Baddeley is dead. Is it merely his own brush with mortality that causes Dalgliesh to sense the shadow of death about to fall once more?
©2008 Louis Bayard (P)2008 Random House Audio
A visage couvert
Summary
Martingale, la belle propriété des Maxie dans la campagne anglaise, est une bien grande maison et, avec un mari paralysé sur les bras, Mrs. Maxie est soulagée lorsque son amie, la directrice du Refuge St. Mary, lui propose une de ses pensionnaires, Sally Jupp, pour servir à table. Certes, la jeune femme est ce qu'il convient d'appeler une mère célibataire et elle a insisté pour ne pas être séparée de son enfant, mais par ailleurs, elle est si jolie, si reconnaissante, si docile... Jusqu'au jour de la kermesse paroissiale de St. Cedd, qui se déroule à Martingale, et au cours de laquelle Sally, non contente de porter la même robe que Deborah, la fille de la maison, annonce brusquement ses fiançailles avec le "jeune maître", Stephen Maxie. Le soir même, un meurtre est commis et Adam Dalgliesh, mandé de Scotland Yard car les Maxie sont des gens en vue, va mener à Martingale une des enquêtes les plus troublantes de sa carrière, véritable huis-clos dont lui-même ne sortira - sentimentalement - pas tout à fait indemne.
©1989 Editions Fayard (P)2021 Sixtrid SAS