Customer Reviews

Innocent Blood

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

James is a great writer of detective/crime fiction. Her Adam Dalgleish series of novels are excellent, very readable and enjoyable.

She surpasses herself with "Innocent Blood", this 'stand alone' (i.e. not part of a detective/crime series) novel of crime and revenge. James tells the story of a young adoptee who, upon her 18th birthday, applies for the right to see her birth certificate and learn the identity of her birth parents. She discovers that her mother is in jail, convicted of murder, but is soon eligible for release. Someone else is aware of the impending release -- the father of the murder victim -- is waiting to exact revenge.

The character of the adoptee, her fantasies about her birth parents and her difficulties with her adoptive parents, is very well written. One aches at her adolescent self-assuredness which we suspect will lead her to painful revelations. The father of the murder victim seeking revenge is developed slowly and carefully so that one begins to wonder who is the criminal mind at work in the novel. His pursuit of his daughter's killer becomes the life-changing and animating event of his life.

The birth mother/murderer/revenge target is less well drawn -- and justly so. The action of the novel is driven by the fantasies, resentments and expectations that her daughter and father of her victim have about this enigmatic woman. It's apparent that who she really is is ultimately and tragically immaterial to those who so desperately seek her.

A great read and very well crafted and written novel. A must for crime fiction readers -- but a recommended read for anyone looking for a well-wrought compelling piece of contemporary British fiction.

INNOCENT BLOOD is one of the most gripping books I have ever read. PD James takes a common childhood fantasy ('what if I were adopted?') and crafts a tale of a complex young woman on a thrilling, frightening, and ultimately empowering journey of self-discovery. Philippa Palfrey <was> adopted, but under circumstances far more grim than the Victorian melodramatics of her imagination. She locates her birth mother in prison and convinces her to live with her upon her release. Waiting for that very day is the father of a child Philippa's mother was convicted of killing. That man, named Scase, is truly creepy; James doesn't try to hide that yet still manages to evoke sympathy for him. The author builds the suspense to a shattering moment when mother, daughter, and Scase are brought together in a bizarre triptych; one is mad enough to kill, one is trying to kill, and one wants to die. Philippa is one of the most psychologically-complex characters ever to spring from James's vast imagination. Some readers will be shocked by the turn taken in Philippa's relationship with her adoptive father in the final chapters, but not a moment in this book rings false. I cannot praise INNOCENT BLOOD highly enough. Here, PD James is at the height of her awesome ability to set a scene -- you will see the drops of water on the laminated table in the adoption records office and smell the oranges in the grocery below Philippa's apartment. Thank you, PD James, for this thrilling read.

I'm amazed at the range of reactions to this book, but I liked it best of the 16 books of hers I've read. And there's no Dalgleish! This is a pretty heavy duty mystery with fantastic characterization and the equivalent of an airshow's twists and turns. Some may very well be put off by the ending, but if they all end the same, where's the mystery? But, like some of Block's Scudder novels, this mystery edges into the regime of real literature through the author's characterizations -- looking into the depths of humans. Enjoy.

P.D. James is a contemporary novelist with a Victorian sensibility, a style that puts some readers off, especially those of us who want writers to get right to the point. "They lived in a house that cost big bucks" says it much quicker than four pages that describe the dwelling's lush gardens and opulent furnishings.

Yet this is a beautifully crafted work with profound psychological insight. The author isn't just skilled, she's wise.

Philippa is a complicated, cerebral, self-absorbed young woman. Giving and receiving affection are hard for her. When she re-connects with her birth mother, though, she falls quickly, simply and deeply in love. Then the truth about her mother's early rejection of her surfaces. Philippa, feeling betrayed, responds by rejecting her mother. By the time Philippa figures that out that what she's lost isn't love but love's illusion and that her love for her mother is real and true despite the earlier betrayal, the inevitable words have been spoken and the unavoidable tragedy has struck.

James could have opted for a cheerful ending. Philippa and her mother could have reconciled. The homicidal stalker could have been foiled. Philippa could have made peace with her adoptive parents or left them in a nice way. But circumstances conspire to teach Philippa that falling in love and the happiness that comes from it are only the surface of love. If it's a truer love that Philippa is after, her will must be broken. She'll need to experience pain, loss, grief and sacrifice to begin to attain the humility and poverty of spirit that James seems to feel are the prerequisites of a deeper or higher love. The compassion that Philippa feels for her mother's murderer and the actions that flow from it show that Philippa has begun to love in earnest. This is her mother's gift to her.

Neither Scase nor Maurice are villains. For all his denials, Maurice loves Philippa, though he lacks the courage to allow himself to love her selflessly and so to love himself and Hilda. Scase is pitiful but his suffering is as real as the others. So is Hilda's.

A less masterful writer might have left us with the feeling that suffering is the prelude to love or else its devastating aftermath. James, whose vision is religious though not doctrinal, seems to see it differently. Love, she seems to be saying, is both suffering and the power that redeems suffering. Philippa, the unloved and unloving child, has the potential to become a loved and loving woman.

P.D. James is best known for her detective Adam Dalgliesh and the mysteries that he has masterly solved in a dozen novels. "Innocent Blood", while a departure from her usual fare, still exhibits some of James' trademarks and is overall an intriguing and slightly disturbing crime novel. The thought with which the plotlines and characters twine together showcases the author's ability to craft ingenious crimes and plumb the psychological depths of her characters.

"Innocent Blood" is the tale of Philippa Palfrey, who has just turned eighteen and is eager to find out who her birth parents were so that she can in turn discover who she is. Adopted when she was eight, Philippa can remember hardly anything of her previous life, and has filled in the gaps with wild romantic fantasies that are brought to a crashing halt when she learns the truth about her background. For she is the daughter of a rapist and a murderer - her biological father died in prison, while her mother is soon due to be released. Philippa denies the advice of her adopted family and searches out her birth mother, blindly putting aside the fact that her mother murdered a twelve-year-old girl, and the two wind up sharing a flat in London for a few weeks in the summer. But Philippa's plans of reconciling with her mother are thrown into jeopardy by someone unknown to her; for the father of the murdered girl has spent the past ten years planning how to enact his vigilante vengeance and stalks the mother and daughter so he can carry out his plan. Yet when Philippa learns a truth even more disconcerting about her mother and her adoption, everyone's plans for the future are threatened.

"Innocent Blood" is not as easy a read as others of James' works. It begins slowly, and the main characters are far from likeable. Philippa has spent the past ten years living in the lap of luxury, but feels nothing more than grudging sense of entitlement toward her adoptive parents. Maurice, her adoptive father, is a sociology professor, who seems to view his relationship with Philippa as an experiment, until the reader learns the true motive behind his actions. The reader will perhaps be surprised to feel some empathy for Philippa's birth mother, despite the fact that she is a child murderer. But the strongest character in the novel is Norman Scase, the vengeance seeking father, a gentle man who made a promise to his late wife to seek out the murderer of their child and who struggles under the enormity of that promise. As the plotlines of these various characters interconnect, the novel picks up pace and draws to an interesting close, but one that is slightly disturbing and perhaps less fulfilling than other crimes P.D. James has offered in other works.

I don't know about this book - it made me read to the end to see what happened - and the ending should have been at the end of Book III, but all the way through I could see and feel the writer writing. That's not good. But the characters were extremely well-drawn, very complete and whole. Much like Le Carre in her meticulous attention to detail - too much so - got in the way sometimes. Plot forced and too coincidental at times. And didn't really like Phillipa, the heroine, if you will. Many good individual lines that I highlighted in the book - especially "in whom we live and move, and have our being" and "an artist should suffer in childhood as much trauma as could be borne without breaking". Would have helped to be more familiar with London. Whose innocent blood? Julie's or Mrs. Ducton's? Several cliches and trite phrases used. Also murder manuscript not plausible. Too overwritten.

For some reason, I had missed this PD James book when I read most of them about 15 years ago. It is not what you would expect, if you are used to Adam Dalgleish and police procedurals. In fact, if you had given me this book without a cover and made me guess the author, I would have said RUTH RENDELL, hands down. I'm surprised no one else has said the same. Consider: the London location, with plenty of details about neighborhoods, buses, and underground trains; multiple characters with strange obsessions that work themselves out slowly and inexorably; a culminating act of violence; and unfortunately (as has been the case in several of Rendell's latest) a slightly unsatisfactory ending. BEWARE OF SPOILER: Strangely enough, in Rendell's latest, she uses James's plot device of a man trying to kill someone who's already dead.

I am a big fan of both writers. For me, this was the best of both worlds. James is a master of spinning plot, location, and character together, and she does that in spades in INNOCENT BLOOD. I would have almost guessed that P.D. and Ruth got together like Bruno and Guy in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN and agreed to swap murders.

I could not put this down. P.D. James is so brave, she's willing to create such deep characters, with such problems. She sets the characters up in a hugely dramatic plot and then sets them free. You really do believe that these are real people, living out these twisted circumstances. Add to that her command of the english language. P.D. James is a huge literary talent. It is a shame that since she is writing "genre" fiction, that she doesn't receive the literary accolades that she deserves.

My recommendation: buy this book, set aside a weekend, and dive in.

This is one of my favorite novels, period. (It's among the few that I have re-read over and over.) And my favorite of James' books. Very complex, great character study, and a page-turning story. Some of the characters are downright unlikeable, and I'm impressed by how James makes the reader care about them and sympathize with them. It's not so much a mystery as a story of revenge and a search for identity. The story isn't always as believable as I would like, but overall I think it's a brilliant work, and one that I recommend most highly.

I was very impressed with this book--the first PD James I have read. I picked it up as a vacation book and quickly found myself engrossed in the characters. They are compelling and real, from the daughter aching to learn the truth about her birth parents to the bitter, haunted father of a murdered child. James does an excellent job of drawing us into the quiet desperation of these people's lives. I would put this book into a literary category rather than a mystery. The secondary characters are extremely well nuanced too, from the blind woman who works in the hotel to the man who works in the fruit and veg shop. The reader is left with a mix of emotions at what in a lesser writer's hands would be a simple murder and revenge story. Highly recommended.