Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (Cordelia Gray, Bk 1)

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (Cordelia Gray, Bk 1)
reviewed on + 1452 more book reviews


Originally published ion 1972, the key character of the novel is Cordelia Gray, an unassuming woman detective who would fade into the background if you didn't know her. Quiet, she seems like she might be a product of the 1940s but she has inherited a detective agency where she's worked briefly. Her partner, discovering he had cancer, committed suicide and left the agency to her. After the funeral, she takes on her first solo Case. The aristocratic father of Mark Callender, a handsome young man, who supposedly hung himself but his father thinks it may be murder. A prominent scientist who didn't communicate much with his son, he wants to find out why his son might have hanged himself. She moves into the small cottage where Callender died.

Clues lead Gray on a twisting route where she discovers secrets and sins best left uncovered, especially by a sensitive goung woman. Finding that nice people sometimes do nasty things, she soon understands that she, too, is in danger of losing her life. Nevertheless, Gray questions friends of the deceased and attends events with them before she uncovers who murdered Mark Callender and why.