Date/Time
Date(s) - 28/06/2025
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Location
Harvest House Conservatory
Categories
Tickets £12(10)
We celebrate the life and work of P.D. James, one of our greatest crime writers. Nicola Upson and Mandy Morton look back on her extraordinary achievements and lasting contribution to the genre. The talk will be illustrated by Mandy Morton’s audio archive, in which P.D. James discusses her work and reads from some of her most popular novels. Both Nicola and Mandy enjoyed a long friendship with the author, and this very special event will give a unique insight into her creative process and legacy.
Nicola Upson was born in Suffolk and read English at Downing College, Cambridge. Her debut novel, An Expert in Murder, was the first in a series of crime novels to feature Josephine Tey – one of the leading authors of Britain’s Golden Age of crime-writing – and was dramatised for Radio 4. Nicola was shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger in 2018 for Nine Lessons, and her latest novel, Shot With Crimson, is the eleventh in the series. She is also the author of Stanley and Elsie, a standalone novel about the painter Stanley Spencer. Nicola’s new book, The Christmas Clue, is a Golden Age mystery featuring the couple who invented Cluedo and will be published in September.
Mandy Morton is an arts journalist who has produced and presented programmes for local and national BBC radio. She produced the P.D. James biography for BBC Radio 2, and her extensive audio archive chronicles the life and work of some of our leading writers, actors and musicians. Mandy has collaborated with Nicola Upson on In Good Company, a book featuring the history of Cambridge Arts Theatre, and more recently writes a popular crime series of her own.
P.D. James (1920-2014) was a bestselling and internationally acclaimed crime writer best known for her books starring poet-detective Adam Dalgliesh. She wrote nineteen novels as well as several short story collections and works of non-fiction. Her work has been translated into thirty-six languages, and has sold millions of copies worldwide. Among many international prizes, awards and honours, she received the highest honours in both British and American crime writing: the CWA Diamond Dagger for a lifetime contribution to the genre, and the Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award. She was inducted into the Crime Writing Hall of Fame in 2008.
