KEIGHLEY Library is taking part in the renowned Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival.

The event on Wednesday May 11 at 2pm, is a ‘Big Read’ gathering, which allows Keighley people to celebrate the life and work of the world’s greatest writers.

PD James, known as the modern ‘Queen of Crime’, received the Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award at the Theakstons festival in 2011.

Crime author Mari Hannah, the festival’s reader-in-residence this year, is touring libraries across the North of England discussing PD James’s novel An Unsuitable Job for a Woman

The Big Read initiative aims to encourage as many people as possible to celebrate great crime writing by reading the same novel at the same time. Many reading groups in the North have taken part.

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman introduces Cordelia Gray, the first modern female detective in crime fiction.

At the time of creating Cordelia Gray, PD James worked as a civil servant in the crime department of the Home Office.

Regarding this novel, she wrote: “I wanted to have a young heroine of courage and intelligence who faces the problems of life with a determination to be successful in a job which everyone else thinks she won't be able to do.”

Mari Hannah is the award-winning author of the Kate Daniels crime fiction series.

She said: “An Unsuitable Job for a Woman is a classic crime novel introducing a lead character ahead of her time. PD James was a true pioneer who gave the rest of us something to chase.”

PD James was the ‘Grande dame of mystery’, made famous by her most iconic character, detective Adam Dalgliesh. She died in 2014, aged 94.