Innocent Blood

By P. D. James

Eighteen-year-old Philippa Palfrey, adopted as a child, believes herself to be the motherless, illegitimate daughter of an aristocratic father. When she exercises her right to find out the truth, she is shocked to discover her birth mother is very much alive—and about to be released from prison. Philippa soon enters a new and terrifying world, and comes to realize that she is not the only one interested in her parents' whereabouts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jun 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9780307400598

P. D. James

P. D. James (1920–2014) was born in Oxford in 1920. She worked in the National Health Service and the Home Office From 1949 to 1968, in both the Police Department and Criminal Policy Department. All that experience was used in her novels. She won awards for crime writing in Britain, America, Italy, and Scandinavia, including the Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award and the National Arts Club Medal of Honour for Literature. She received honorary degrees from seven British universities, was awarded an OBE in 1983 and was created a life peer in 1991.

Reviews for Innocent Blood

[ffortsa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a long a detailed book, but I still read it in two days. James steps out of her police and detective series constraints here for a stand-alone story, not really a mystery, but more an elaborate journey toward a resolution for characters who started out unlikable, but grew on me as the story progressed. Crimes, legal and otherwise, direct this book, from bad marriages, betrayals, an adoption with odd motive into a dysfunctional family, to horrific historical crimes, acts of revenge and reunion. Phillipa Palfrey finds a mother, loses a family, begins to develop a feeling for other people as she attempts to find out who she really is. Excellent.

[crypto3willobie · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I like her straight mysteries well enough, but this is a psychological suspense novel in the manner of Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell) which means I like it a lot.

[josephking6602 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Another great book by PD James; she writes about life more than about crime! Highly recommended.

[keithgordonvernon · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Story ok, but Tediously long winded

[mrvica-12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is not a true mystery book, more a suspense novel with excellent character elaboration. Everything about this book is a bit weird, dark, almost Victorian: the scenery, the plot, and most of all the characters. They are so realistic, depicted with all their negative sides and flaws, and here I mean not just their ugly looks, but despicable behaviour and relationships, as well. I like books which are not conventional, which have their own value and style. The only thing that I found a bit disappointing is too much time dedicated to the first part of the book and too little to the final and ultimate ending. But, nevertheless, I found this book really good and definitely worth reading.

[baswood · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very good thriller, finely drawn characters,with a real feel for 1960's England (not the swinging sixties but the suburban sixties)

[sunil_del · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Not a typical crime thriller, yet has a fantastic ending. James has described London beautifully

[the7ken7petersen · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Despite the rubric 'Queen of Crime' splayed across the cover, this is not really a crime story in the true sense. Philippa has always known that she was adopted and, when the law is changed to allow her to find her birth parents, she grabs the opportunity with both hands. Dad is dead but, the mum that she had been told was deceased is alive and soon to be released from prison, where she has been detained for the murder of a young girl that her father had raped. She takes a flat for two months, with her estranged mum, whilst waiting to go to university but, unbeknownst to both, the father of mum's victim is tracking them down, intent on revenge (with it so far?).P.D. James is good at drawing characters from the middle class but her attempts here to create working class people somewhat falls down. I fully expected George, the greengrocer, to touch his cap and say, "Gore blimey missus!" at some stage during the story: sadly, I was disappointed, but never totally disavowed of the prospect.Thanks to James' eye for detail, this book is perhaps most interesting as a social history of life in the late 1970's: a time before mobile phones, computers and so much more. Reading this review, I have been a little mean; despite the aforementioned shortcomings, I did enjoy the book.

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Very tedious read. None of the characters were particularly likable. Not really a mystery per se. Just not a very engaging read. I'd much prefer going back to Adam Dagleish.

[readingrat_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Interesting - not your average crime novel. Different than I was expecting - makes me want to hunt up some other books by this author.

[thorold_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The late Baroness for once dispensing with the usual apparatus of the detective story and taking her time to explore the repercussions of a terrible crime on the lives of the people involved, many years later. Interesting, and there are some very nice bits of description and character analysis, but the pacing didn't feel quite right (dawdling unconscionably in some spots, then rushing through implausible transitions elsewhere). I also got the impression that James had changed her mind at some point about which decade we were supposed to be in: the London street where a lot of the action in the "present day" (i.e. late 1970s) story is supposed to be set often sounds much more like something out of the immediate post-War period, twenty years earlier.I haven't looked it up, but my guess would be that James must have had this lying in a drawer unfinished for a long time, and only reworked it for publication when her detective stories started to become a success.

[alanna1122 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I just finished this book and I am not really sure how I feel about it. Overall- I was pretty pleased with the ending... except for one last mention at the very end concerning Phillippa's relationship with her adoptive father . It was one of those moments where I just thought to myself - "my goodness why even go there at this point??") . Otherwise this book is a purposely slow moving book - an experiment for PD James in writing a different kind of mystery.... i will say that it kept my attention - but not on the same compelling level that her other books have.

[tcarter_77 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The sheer number of tags I felt I had to use for this book illustrates the number of themes it covers. If it has a central motif, it is something to do with where our sense of identity and self comes from. Is it our blood, our upbringing, our intrinsic nature, crisis events in our history? The question is never answered but it is explored from different perspectives in an illuminating, disquieting but sometimes not very subtle way. Will bear rereading I think, though others may find it a bit obvious?

[wyvernfriend · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Interesting if vaguely disturbing book about murders aftermath.

[matke-261098 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not a mystery, really, but rather a suspense story involving a man seeking to avenge the long-ago death of his only child. And that’s the secondary story: the main story is all about a young adopted woman who decides that she wants to know the story of her birth parents. One illusion after another is smashed as the daughter resolutely pursues her past. This is a sad, indeed tragic book. There are no real winners here, and only the merest hint of a happier future for one of the characters. James writes it well, but there are some excessive descriptive passages that add little to the story. A hard read, not for the depressed.

[mrslee_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book rated two stars for me. In my rating system, that means that I didn't care for it, but others might. Obviously, reading other reviews, people do care for it. It's possible that I may have enjoyed it more when I was younger. I was more forgiving of darkness and character flaws then. Now when I read I want something with at least a glimmer of light. When I was about half way through, I skipped to the last three chapters to see if it was worth continuing and for me there were no surprises and the main character hadn't changed a bit, so that confirmed my suspicion that I need not waste any more time with it.The main character is arrogant, high-handed, juvenile, ignorant and thoroughly unpleasant. I might have worked to finish this if the end proved that she could grow and change, but all the unpleasantness she discovered in life only confirmed her character.I have enjoyed some of James' other writings, but this has put me off for a good long time. I suppose I can say this for her; she set the mood well, but it was such a foul mood I couldn't stay in it.

[bruce_mcnair_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Philippa Palfrey has just turned 18 and is eager to learn about her past life. But then she learns that she is the daughter of a rapist and a muderer. At the same time, the father of the daughter that her mother killed wants revenge. This is the start of slow, drawn-out tale that could only end in death and disappointment. On the way we are treated to the daily grind and struggle of life in London in the 1970s. At times, I could forget that a murder had occurred as I followed Philippa and her mother. But then there was the torturous search by the man intent on revenge - a man who couldn’t forget. How could it end? The twist at the end was surprising, but I also felt that it was too neat. In my opinion, the writing is excellent, as it should be for a successful crime writer, but I thought that the ending resulted in a less than perfect story. I gave it 4 stars out of 5.

[jlapac-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Philippa takes advantage of her right to find her birth parents the minute she turns 18. The story she has been told her whole life about her mother being a maid in a great manor house and her father being a gentleman is found to be completely untrue. The horrifying truth sets her on a collision course with human nature and sets her up to learn more about life in one summer than she has learned in 18 years. PD James’ descriptions are so masterful that I can see and hear and feel the settings of her books, which is one of the things I like about her writing.

[ant.harrison · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is one of PD James's best books, although for some reason it is not held in the same high esteem as her other detective-led novels. It concerns the search by an adopted daughter for her mother, and her mother turns out to be a convicted murderer.

There's an intensity and urgency to the writing here that, however well stylised and characterised her other books, is sometimes lacking in her other work. I think this is to do with the fact that the device used to bring the protagonists together is less contrived, less artificial than in some of the Dalgliesh books. The tension and drama, the narrative drive emanates from the characters in a more realistic way. This could be called a 'straight' novel (along with her other, sometimes less-well-regarded, Children of Men), but it has all the hallmarks of James at her best - tight plotting, believable characters and a commentary on broader issues such as loss, pain and parent-child relationships. Make sure you read this.

© Koplowitz 2012

[piemouth · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Reread. Psychological mystery about a young woman, adopted, who traces her parents and finds that they murdered a child. Her mother is about to released from prison and she suggests they rent an apartment together for the months before she goes to Cambridge. There is more going on that she doesn’t know.This is a great, suspenseful thriller but I have to say that the emotions of many of the characters are really weird and don't make a lot of sense. The ending, emotion-wise, was a mess that strained credulity, and I'm not talking about the sex. I didn't notice this the first time I read it. Because of this I gave it 3 stars, down from 5 midway through. Oh yeah there is a carefully knitted, meaningfully given sweater that is destroyed in a fit of anger which bothered me more than the child murder.

[benfulton · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I see this as James' attempt to write "Literature." Her murder mysteries always have an intense bent towards the psychological analyses of her characters, which has always made for better writing than the average mystery novel, where the focus is on getting the clues revealed slowly enough that the reader can take a shot at figuring out the culprit.In this novel, we don't step entirely away from the murder theme, but we're introduced quite soon in the book to the prospective murderer, so there's no mystery involved. We watch as he carefully makes his plan, mapping out each step, and we follow the victim as she goes about her day oblivious to her danger. But the emphasis is certainly on the relationships between the characters, and their ambiguous and complex motives for their actions. It's all very literary.Probably why I didn't care for it much. Bring back Dalgliesh.