Phyllis Dorothy James, (1920 – 27 November 2014), known as P. D. James, was an English crime writer. She rose to fame for her series of detective novels starring English police commander and poet Adam Dalgliesh. Dalgliesh is a late example of the gentleman detective, a staple of British detective fiction. A number of parallels may be drawn between Dalgliesh and another contemporary fictional detective, Inspector Morse. In the first novel, Dalgliesh is a Detective Chief Inspector. He eventually reaches the rank of Commander in the Metropolitan Police Service at New Scotland Yard in London. He is an intensely cerebral and private person. He writes poetry, a fact about which his colleagues are fond of reminding him. Several volumes of his poetry have been published. Dalgliesh lives in a flat above the Thames at Queenhithe in the City of London. In the earlier novels he drives a Cooper Bristol, later a Jaguar. He was described as being "tall, dark and handsome" by some