Book Log 2021 #39: An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P. D. James

Cordelia Grey is a young private investigator who find herself in charge of her own agency when her former boss kills himself and leaves the practice to her. While she's not sure if she can keep the place afloat, she decides to keep it open in memory of her mentor. Which turns out to be a good idea, as she soon gets her first client, the assistant to a prominent scientist whose son has recently killed himself. The assitant wants Grey to figure out why he would have done this.

And, as you might expect, as Grey investigates the death she becomes convinced that it was actually murder. And while someone is trying to scare her off the case, she's determined to find the killer.

Grey's inexperience and ambivalence in her profession made this a more enjoyable read for me than any of the Dalgliesh books, where I feel like he generally comes up with the solution out of nowhere. The progress of the investigation here was realistic for an investigator like Grey. I would definately suggest reading this book before any of the Dalgliesh ones (he does appear in this book, but you don't really need to know who he is).