Monday 3 August will mark what would have been the 100th birthday of P. D. James, who was published by Faber for over fifty years following the publication of her first novel, Cover Her Face, in 1962.

In celebration of this centenary, Faber will publish, for the first time in book form, her short story The Part-Time Job.

I wasn’t in any particular hurry to kill him. What was important was to make sure that the deed was done without suspicion settling on me . . .

In this small, dark treat of a story, the ‘Queen of Crime’ takes us into the mind of a man who has waited decades to enact his patient, ingenious revenge on a school bully.

P. D. James – awarded an OBE in 1983 and made a life peer in 1991 – was the bestselling, internationally acclaimed author of eighteen crime novels, including the Adam Dalgliesh and Cordelia Gray series, as well as The Children of Menand two posthumously published collections of short stories. She won numerous awards for crime writing internationally, including the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award and a CWA Diamond Dagger, the highest honour in British crime writing.