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Summary: Superlative crime novel
Review: This book is a great example of why I think that P. D. James is the archetypal crime novelist, someone who combines the elements of a good mystery with strong writing and vivid themes, yet _not_ being pretentious in the process. It is deceptively simple: a variation of the English country house murder with a limited group of suspects--only here the English country house is replaced by various institutions in the British criminal justice system. I enjoyed it a great deal, both as a mystery and as a novel.
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Summary: Great mystery with twists in the plot!
Review: This book is great if you like to read books for the plot. This is a typical murder mystery, but it's not predictable. P.D. James made a great plot and did extremely well in developing the story line. Each character has something in their past that relates to the main character and gives them motives for the mystery. The book was good, but some of the parts that were meant to keep the reader on the edge didn't really work. The next step wasn't predictable just the excitement wasn't there in some scenes. The end of the book was a bit confusing, but able to grasp. It is a creative ending because there is not an arrest, but the sense of one.
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Summary: A Dagliesh novel back to top form
Review: This is one of the best Adam Dagliesh novels P. D. James has written in years, and is a fine return to the halcyon days on novels like A MIND TO MURDER. James seems much more interested in this novel in character development and interaction than she has in recent years, and she thankfully eschews her obsession with architecture which all but overwhelmed A TASTE FOR DEATH and ORIGINAL SIN. Starting the novel by describing the last few weeks in Venetia Aldridge's life allows the reader to be caught up in Aldridge's world, to respect her if not to like her, and to feel a certain stake in solving the mystery of her murder. It isn't hard to figure out who did it, but that's almost always the case with James's novels: the pleasure is in seeing the complicated web of petty hatreds and resentments drawn out among an interesting group of people. And James in this novel is much more sympathetic to her characters than she has been in recent years: you feel that while Octavia, Mrs. Buckley, and Venetia Aldridge herself are pretty objectionable, you don't feel they are as irredeemable as the loathsome aristocrats in A TASTE FOR DEATH.
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Summary: Yuk
Review: Unabridged audio Hard to follow. Boring. Too may characters. Not a good audiobook.
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Summary: Social stereotypes behave predictably...
Review: There is little new or surprising in this latest effort from James. There is a certain whiff of snobbery and misogeny about this book. The main female characters (nearly all victims of one sort or another) are portrayed by dysfunction, insecurities and social class, with scant attention to any unique individuality. Few of the characters elicit interest or sympathy. Dalgleish, the most complex character here, is woefully absent for big chunks of this book. I'm not surprised this is getting better reviews in the US, distance from its setting (London, UK) probably enhances its plausability!
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Summary: Well-done mystery
Review: Though not a mystery lover in general, this one is better than most. It holds together well, except for the last part. I didn't entirely buy the ending, but I DID think Olivia was particularly convincing as was the Ashe character. Better character development than is often found in the average mystery.
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Summary: James returns in good form with an engrossing thriller.
Review: "A Certain Justice" delivers a very intensely-woven mystery with a plethora of suspects and very human characters and situations. It was a very quick read for me, however I did find certain parts of the plot a bit contrived, and I didn't appreciate the killer being revealed only until the very end of the book. The disappearance of Dalgliesh during 3/4 of Book Four was also disconcerting. I have always felt that Ms. James' novels were a bit rushed towards the end, but she is still a suberb novelist, and this book is a very enjoyable read. Insightful and engrossing.
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Summary: Very inefficient mystery
Review: This is the first PDJ I read, and it has all the makings of a cheap mystery. In the name of "character development", all the characters NOT CONNECTED to the plot are given a lot of bandwidth. Half-way through the 'mystery', I figured out who the 'culprit' was, because that character was not being given any importance. I dont understand the similarities drawn to Ms Chrisite. Her books have an aura of spookiness, which PDJ has not achieved in this book.
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Summary: she just gets better and better
Review: I never do fail to find a P.D. James novel rewarding, but "A Cerain Justice" has fulfilled even my highest expectations of her art, its quality reminding me of my favorite of her novels, "Innocent Blood." In the lawyer Venetia Aldridge, P.D. James has created one of her more sympathetic figures, despite or precisely because of the fact she is difficult and unloved. James, as usual, throws red herrings left and right, in the process painting a nuanced and compassionate portrait of the ordinary anxieties and petty tragedies of life across a cross-section of contemporary English society. With relative economy of means, she fashions complex, fascinating, and convincing characters (though an English person would best judge their verissimilitude); even the "heroes" show weaknesses and unworthy moments (but, being James' heroes, they are introspective enough to recognize their shortcomings). For some reason, I found the plot rather less contrived than those of some of the other novels (the narrative here feels tighter -- or is it just that I finished the book in two sittings) -- that's not necessarily a criticism in any case -- you be the judge. James' maxim that murder changes everything and that merely catching the murdering can never restore the original balance of things is indeed bleak but far more truthful (and ultimately more satisfying) than the more optimistic viewpoints heard from other novelists. Enjoy this one!
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Summary: An outstanding, traditional mystery
Review: Although the trappings of the tale are very much 1990's -- sexism and "queen bee" behavior in a law firm, financially stretched two-income families, a career woman who has no satisfactory personal relationships, etc. -- this book felt very "old-fashioned" to me. The plot is well constructed and well thought out, but some devices (e.g., a letter mailed by someone just before she is killed) are awfully Agatha Christie. I didn't think that "coincidence" was overused; what seems at first to be coincidence often turned out to be deliberate behavior by someone with an agenda. And the violence in the subplot wasn't gratuitous -- it made perfect sense given the characters involved. I felt that the "whodunit" aspect was the least interesting part: the murderer HAD to be one of a limited set of people, so the element of surprise was missing (I figured it out long before the conclusion!).
To me, the chief pleasure of James' novels is how she creates an entire "world" peopled with believable, memorable individuals, then uses a crime as the force that disrupts the orderly motion of everyone's lives and brings out hidden aspects of their characters. She's excellent at conveying the atmosphere of a firm or an institution -- every one she's written about in her novels is unique. And her ability to convey the "feel" of someone's life with a few well-chosen details is unsurpassed. From this standpoint, I found the book just about perfect, and I enjoyed it immensely.
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