There is no doubt that PD James is the.doyenne of British crime writing. She recently celebrated her 90th birthday and is still going strong, with her latest novel in the long-running series featuring Adam Dalgleish of Scotland Yard earning bestseller status both in the UK and overseas. She has long been fascinated not only by the craft of writing tightly-plotted detective fiction, but also by the history of the genre and by the work of many of her distinguished predecessors. Over the years, she has spoken and written a good many times about, for example, her admiration for Dorothy L Sayers. Happily, she has now produced this slim volume, which revisits a number of themes that she has explored in the past, while providing a narrative account of the development of the genre that is not only enjoyable and informative, but also -- of course! -- elegantly written. This is not a full-blown history of crime fiction comparable to that enduring classic Bloody Murder by Julian Symons (to whom James refers in the text) but it will undoubtedly provide readers who are not particularly familiar with crime fiction of the past with a valuable outline guide to landmarks in the genre since Edgar Allan Poe wrote ' The Murders in the Rue Morgue" as long ago as 1841. My main reservation about the book is that it does not, in my opinion, fully do justice to the remarkable innovative gifts of Agatha Christie; James acknowledges Christie's contribution to the Golden Age, but clearly prefers the work of Sayers, and tends to underestimate Christie in comparison -- perhaps because Sayers was the superior literary stylist, and paid less attention to the weaving of ingenious "whodunnit" plots. This caveat aside, James's judgements -- even when, as is sometimes the case, they are little controversial -- are likely to command widespread agreement, as well as respect. Talking about Detective Fiction will appeal not only to James's large core readership, but also to many people who are simply interested in learning more about the types of books they love to read.