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Innocent Blood

p.d. james

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Adopted as a child into a privileged family, Philippa Palfrey fantasizes that she is the daughter of an aristocrat and a parlor maid. The terrifying truth about her parents and a long-ago murder is only the first in a series of shocking betrayals. Philippa quickly learns that those who delve into the secrets of the past must be on guard when long-buried horrors begin to stir.

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1980
Literary awards
cwa silver dagger, 
Places
england, 

This edition

Format
400 pages, Paperback
Published
August 2, 2001 by Scribner
ISBN
9780743219631
ASIN
0743219635
Language
English
Characters More characters

More editions

About the author

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p.d. james

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P. D. James, byname of Phyllis Dorothy James White, Baroness James of Holland Park, (born August 3, 1920, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England—died November 27, 2014, Oxford), British mystery novelist best known for her fictional detective Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard.

The daughter of a middle-grade civil servant, James grew up in the university town of Cambridge. Her formal education, however, ended at age 16 because of lack of funds, and she was thereafter self-educated. In 1941 she married Ernest C.B. White, a medical student and future physician, who returned home from wartime service mentally deranged and spent much of the rest of his life in psychiatric hospitals. To support her family (which included two children), she took work in hospital administration and, after her husband's death in 1964, became a civil servant in the criminal section of the Department of Home Affairs. Her first mystery novel, Cover Her Face (1962), introduced Dalgliesh and was followed by six more mysteries before she retired from government service in 1979 to devote full time to writing.

Dalgliesh, James's master detective who rises from chief inspector in the first novel to chief superintendent and then to commander, is a serious, introspective person, moralistic yet realistic. The novels in which he appears are peopled by fully rounded characters, who are civilized, genteel, and motivated. The public resonance created by James's singular characterization and deployment of classic mystery devices led to most of the novels featuring Dalgliesh being filmed for television. James, who earned the sobriquet “Queen of Crime,” penned 14 Dalgliesh novels, with the last, The Private Patient, appearing in 2008.

James also wrote An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972) and The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982), which centre on Cordelia Gray, a young private detective. The first of these novels was the basis for both a television movie and a short-lived series. James expanded beyond the mystery genre in The Children of Men (1992; film 2006), which explores a dystopian world in which the human race has become infertile. Her final work, Death Comes to Pemberley (2011)—a sequel to Pride and Prejudice (1813)—amplifies the class and relationship tensions between Jane Austen's characters by situating them in the midst of a murder investigation. James's nonfiction works include The Maul and the Pear Tree (1971), a telling of the Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811 written with historian T.A. Critchley, and the insightful Talking About Detective Fiction (2009). Her memoir, Time to Be in Earnest, was published in 2000. She was made OBE in 1983 and was named a life peer in 1991.

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Community Reviews

Rating(3.9 / 5.0, 99 votes)
5 stars
29(29%)
4 stars
28(28%)
3 stars
42(42%)
2 stars
0(0%)
1 stars
0(0%)
99 reviews All reviews
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losinski4
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This thriller reveals P D James to (possibly) have some particularly unpleasant victim blaming beliefs - it appearing to be the fault of victims and their parents when rape and murder is committed. At first I thought this was just the view of the particularly unpleasant fictional narrator but by the end, when these views went unchallenged, realised they were very likely the author's opinions too. I wish I had not read this book. I've always had problems with her right wing (Conservative) politics and contempt for working class people but have tolerated this for the sake of her excellent plotting, but this novel (together with the transparent plot of The Lighthouse and the truly awful Death at Pemberley) has 'killed' PD James for me.
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An0therW
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I had a very hard time putting this story down. I would race home after work so that could cram in more reading time. This is one of P. D. James's non Dalgliesh books.

If you found out a secret about your family would you still be able to forgive? Once the truth is out things start to happen.
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DevilsxFruit
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This is the second PD James I've read. As a murder mystery, it's above average. It's also an exploration of what forgiveness means or is, in the context of a child murder. As with real life, it's incredibly messy, not least in the ending. So, it wasn't a pleasant read (hence the 3 star rating), but rather a grim depiction of reality slamming into fantasy. I have a feeling this story is necessary to understand PD James' stories (in addition to which, Ken Myers has mentioned that this book marked a turning point in her novels becoming more serious).
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FRESHShaZaM
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This book is super crazy. In fact I think that P D James must have gone crazy when writing this book.
Reasons why this book is horrible:
1. Having a main character who is probably a sociopath may be a problem. She absolutely has no feelings except for her self.
2. Having the killer be the most sympathetic character is also strange. And he really shouldn't be sympathetic but he is better than everyone else.
3. Overuse of the word Fawn. As in the color. I swear James must have used it at least five times a chapter.
4. Excusing child molesters is totally ok. Cause it was probably caused by not being man enough to handle a woman.
5. Having an affair with your adopted father is also cool since you aren't actually related and it's totally normal.
6. Number 5 was thrown in at the end of the book with no warning. Yuck! All the people in this book are perverts.
7. Have your teenage main character talk like John Green's characters.
James is a really good writer but this book is crazy.
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Mikio-chan
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Wish we could award half stars - liked the writing, but the story dragged in places. James as always did a great job setting the scene, describing locations, and helping the reader to picture the characters. I always learn new vocabulary from her books, at least one new word each title. She writes in what I consider a typically "English" way, evoking a totally different atmosphere from the usual crime novel. While this book did not engage the reader in solving a crime, it did engage me in a coming of age tale about an adopted child and in the psychological development of a man seeking revenge. A stand-alone psychological study that is well worth reading, despite its gray atmosphere.
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sg_epk_1048596
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Ok, I must admit that I just couldn't bring myself to finish this book; thus, the date finished would be more accurately titled "Date I FINALLY Gave Up on this Book". This is not P.D. James' best work. It lacks even remotely likable characters and the plot drags like turtles wading through peanut butter. I used to be one who simply had to finish a book once I started it; but, I have learned that life is too short to read mediocre books, devoid of one small modicum of hope or decency.

So, technically, I didn't read it--all. I am grateful to previous reviewers who expressed similar impressions of the book and I feel absolved as to the need to persevere.

June 2024: Ack. I finished it. Ack again.
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DiossitoXl
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Over the last year or so, I have met a wide variety of people who like knitting - not least the ferocious and redoubtable knitters of CERN, one of whom was even featured on a recent Swiss TV program. So, although I do not knit myself, I have come to develop some appreciation of the joy and heartbreak it can bring people.

This book is one that I would advise knitters to approach with great caution. Suppose there were a person you had thought about every day for many years, and longed desperately to meet. Suppose, by some extraordinary chance, that you were suddenly granted an opportunity to meet that person. Suppose, as a token of your love and gratitude, that you knitted them a miraculously wonderful sweater, a piece of knitting into which you had poured your very soul.

And then suppose they threw it in the river...
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ThanosCh5
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I wonder why this author feels compelled to write interesting, but extremely verbose, stories around characters that are impossible to like or even feel sorry for.

Here, we find a cold, arrogant young woman, who finds love and kindness to be impossible concepts, looking to find out "who she is", by searching for her birth mother. Well, she finds the mother and now we know why the main character is a sociopath. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

A disappointment.
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