Genre: Fiction
Published: 2 August 1982
Publisher: Faber & Faber
International Rights have been sold to Brazil/Companhia das Letras, Canada/Knopf Canada, China/Inner Mongolia People’s Publishing, Czech Republic/Albatros Media, Denmark/Forum, Finland/Kustannusosakeyhtio Otava Publishing, France/Librairie Artheme Fayard, Germany/Verlagsgruppe Droemer Knaur, Greece/Kastaniotis Editions S.A., Holland/Meulenhoff Boekerij, Italy/Mondadori Libri, Japan/Hayakawa Shobo, Russia/AST Publishers, US/Scribner US

The Skull Beneath The Skin

by The Estate of P.D. James


Hired to protect a beautiful but neurotic actress, Cordelia Gray soon becomes embroiled in a case as dangerous to her own life as it is mysterious.

Clarissa Lisle hopes to make a spectacular comeback in a production of The Duchess of Malfi, to be played in Ambrose Gorringe’s sinister castle at Courcy Island. Cordelia is there to ensure her safety following the appearance of a number of poison-pen letters. But it soon becomes clear that all are in danger. Trapped within the walls of the Gothic Castle, the treacherous past of the island re-emerges, and everyone seems to have a motive for sending Clarissa ‘down, down the hell’.

Marking the return of Cordelia Gray, THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN is a complex mystery that more than lives up to its predecessor, AN UNSUITABLE JOB FOR A WOMAN.

"A masterly version of the clue-and-alibi game... five-star" - The Guardian
"James pulls out all the stops... combining the enclosed setting of the country-house murder with elements of the horror story; an overlay of lust; a collection of relics of Victorian murderers... midnight apparitions; hairbreath escapes" - New York Magazine

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