DEVICES AND DESIRES

A serial killer is on the loose in a remote area of the Norfolk coast. Overshadowing the bleak landscape and the lives of the local community is the Larksoken nuclear power station, run by the charismatic Alex Mair.

Then a death occurs that makes it chillingly apparent that the mass murderer isn't the only killer at work in Larksoken.

When Commander Adam Dalgliesh becomes involved in the hunt for the murderer, he finds himself caught up in the passions and dangerous secrets of the headland community.

Author Biography: P. D. James was born in Oxford in 1920 and educated at Cambridge High School for Girls. From 1949 to 1968 she worked in the National Health Service and subsequently in the Home Office, first in the Police Department and later in the Criminal Policy Department. All that experience has been used in her novels. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Royal Society of the Arts and has served as a Governor of the BBC, a member of the Arts Council, where she was Chairman of its Literary Advisory Panel, on the Board of the British Council and as a magistrate in Middlesex and London.

She has won awards for crime writing in Britain, America, Italy and Scandinavia, including the Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award. She has received honorary degrees from seven British universities, was awarded an OBE in 1983 and was created a life peer in 1991. In 1997 she was elected President of the Society of Authors. She lives in London and Oxford and has two daughters.