This book left a bad taste in my mouth...I really like James' work and her descriptive skills are almost without peer. But, the story line here is distasteful and certain aspects of the denouement seemed to be tacked on as an after-thought. Certainly not one of my favorite book by one of my favorite British authors.

I am not kidding on the spoiler thing -- I give away the end of the book.

This was not a mystery -- the mystery described on the cover is resolved within a couple of chapters -- in terms of genre, it's a mix between a suspense novel and following someone who is working to commit a crime.

I read two P.D. James' novels this weekend, a reread and this one, and while the plots generally differed (the other was a mystery), they both reached a climactic scene wherein someone the heroine barely knows murders the murderer of their child, and the heroine steps in to cover up that murder and thus ensure this murderer goes free. And, now I think on it, both books have a distant mother who shows her love for her child via knitting and not much else.

James did not write so very many books that I thought it necessary to repeat so many elements. Granted, some of my favorite authors (Jayne Anne Krentz, I'm looking at you), keep writing about the same basic characters with new names and backgrounds, but they also crank out a boatload of books with considerable variation in the other details. Plus the elements they repeat are elements I enjoy, which was not the case here. In neither case did I think the heroine's efforts to cover up the murder made a whole lot of sense, although I suppose it could be argued in this one that the heroine identified with the murderer because in her heart she'd wanted to murder the victim as well -- for reasons I thought shallow and stupid....

I probably would have given the book three stars despite these complaints, since the writing is good and it certainly held my interest, except I found most of the characters either selfish and overly intellectual to the point of mechanical; pathetic in the "loser" sense of the word; or impossibly perfect and entirely impenetrable. If I never warm up to any of the characters, few books will get past "okay" with me, and this one had no flashes of brilliance elsewhere to balance out that lack.

3.5 stars

At 400 pages, this was long for what would be labeled a murder mystery, although I would call it a suspense thriller myself. It had excellent pacing, but the last 50 pages were akin to a deflating balloon. Many outrageous reveals were crammed into 10 or 15 pages, and the ending was not only ridiculous but had me wondering if James had entered an alternate reality or a hypnotic state when she typed out those final pages. And I'm sorry, but when the adopted daughter sleeps with her adoptive father and then says "oh it meant nothing and I will now move on, no harm done," that is just an ignorant way to end a book.

Phillipa Palfrey is the adopted daughter of a wealthy family. Her father is a psychologist at the university and her mother is cultured. She is going to Cambridge in the fall but now that she is of age, she is able to indulge her long time ambition to find her birth parents.

But all stories don't have a happy ending. She finds that her birth parents were murderers, that they killed a young girl. Her father is dead, her mother imprisoned. But it turns out that her mother is about to be paroled.

Phillipa is determined to meet and get to know her mother. She rents an apartment in London and invites her mother to come and live with her for the summer before she goes to college. Her mother hesitantly agrees. The two move in and soon are spending every moment together. Phillipa is fascinated by her mother and begins to dream of giving up Cambridge to stay with her.

But someone else is in the picture. The father of the girl who was murdered has decided that only death is the appropriate punishment for the crime. He stalks Phillipa and the mother and makes his plans. Will he be successful? Will Phillipa be able to save the day?

P. D. James is considered by many the queen of British crime writing. She worked for thirty years in the British Civil Service, including police and criminal law departments. Her twenty books are still used in adaptations on television. This book is a warning about rosy optimism where reality is put aside and is recommended for mystery readers.

How to rate this? The good parts are amazing and the bad parts are awful. The plot was, to me, very reminiscent of Ruth Rendell's standalones. But there's a grander, more Greek tragedy kind of feeling as multiple forces propel the characters towards disaster.

On the awful side, some things are way too convenient. Philippa discovers who her mother is just at the moment when she is getting out of prison. The bean-counter whose daughter was murdered has a bizarre history of petty crime which serves him well when he starts stalking and burglarizing his prey. Then there's the stuff which seems weird and objectionable in 2015 that might have passed more easily when this book was written. Philippa's parents got unlucky, we are told, because their victim was such a pushover and not, like one of their colleagues in the fish and chip shop, someone who would have cheerfully moved on after being sexually molested. Philippa sleeping with Maurice? I think something like that might have flown in the 70s.

Both kind of amazing and objectionable: Philippa doesn’t seem credible as a seventeen-year-old, even a precocious, Cambridge-bound one. One of the things I liked best about the book was her enjoyment of art and literature, which reminded me of Cordelia Grey, another character of James's. At one point Gray is shown wandering around Cambridge (or Oxford?) feeling blissful for being able to spend that one day at university, where she always longed to go, and it reminded me of an interview where James said she didn't get to go to university and consequently spent her whole life reading. I love that passionate bookishness and feeling for art and music. But I wonder if Philippa, that product of a social experiment, is sort of a stand-in for the author.

Basically, what we have is a book that was way longer than it should have been that tried very hard to be what P D James's other books are, but without Adam Dalgliesh. Unfortunately, it falls very short of all those goals. What we have in a nutshell, is a story about an adopted child, Philippa, who has just turned 18 and learns the shocking truth of her real parents' identity. She is determined to find and reclaim her natural mother. First clue that nothing is going to turn out to be good in any way. In addition, we have a mild-mannered man who vows revenge on the woman who killed his only child. None of the characters are sympathetic or even remotely likeable. Not the grocer, not the neighbor where Philippa learned the first piece of the puzzle, nor the hapless murder victim herself. It's also a rather tired portrayal of the class system which includes the expected swipes at the Conservatives. To sum it up it's a bitter observation on society with a little intrigue thrown in. Personally, I found it rather depressing.

Una joven adoptada por un matrimonio de clase media/alta decide, al cumplir los 18 años, averiguar sus orígenes. Y se entera de que su padre biológico violó a una niña de 11 años y su madre la asesinó. Esta está a punto de salir de la cárcel y Philippa -la hija- decide contactar con ella y contactarla. Pero también el padre de la pequeña asesinada sabe que la culpable va a salir de la cárcel y planea su venganza.

Quien haya leído ya a P. D. James (la recomiendo) sabrá que no va a haber descripciones truculentas del crimen, ni regodeo en los sucesos. Los acontecimientos son el punto de partida para analizar y reflejar cómo son sus personajes -cómo somos las personas- en situaciones excepcionales, cómo se toman las decisiones, cómo se asumen las consecuencias. Es más una novela psicológica que de crímenes, pero, por supuesto, hay tensión e intriga. Y el convencimiento de que nadie puede quedar indemne de sus acciones...

I'd been wanting to read a P.D. James mystery, and chose INNOCENT BLOOD from a list of the Top 10 Mysteries of the 20th Century. It must have made that list because it's unique, meaning it holds an odd twist that separates it from a typical mystery. Other than that, I would not put it on my personal list of Top Mysteries of any century.

Written in 1980, INNOCENT BLOOD is the story of Philippa Palfrey, an adopted girl who lives in London. Though her adoptive parents are well-to-do, she imagines her birth parents to be star-crossed aristocrats. On her 18th birthday, she can legally learn their true identity and finds that not only are they not aristocrats, they are a rapist and a murderess. Her father died in prison, but her mother is soon to be paroled. Philippa decides she will move out of her cushy home and get an apartment so she and her birth mother can spend time together before Philippa goes off to Cambridge. Meanwhile, the father of the little girl who was raped and murdered by Philippa's parents has vowed to kill the woman who killed his daughter. While Philippa and her mother are exploring London, the man trails them with his single-minded mission. Things don't go as planned.

The novel, in and of itself, is about 100 pages too long, in my opinion. While P.D. James is a skilled storyteller and writer, I don't know how this book compares to her others. I'm happy to have read it, but I can't give it a strong endorsement.

THREE overly-detailed STARS

ok, what the hell did i just read? for the majority of the book i was mostly enjoying it, the premise was a little dark but i was into it and it was fascinating. the writing was good; there were a lot of long detailed descriptions which were a little hard to slog through but everything else was holding my interest enough to keep going. slowly i started to realize that every single character had some major character flaws and really no redeeming qualities, aka no one was very likable. which i guess is an acceptable theme in a book but it makes me feel disconnected from the characters and the story. the last 50 pages or so had me on the edge of my seat, but then at the VERY end you get a plot twist that i really truly hated. specifically in the epilogue, the second to last page, she slips in a detail so nonchalantly, and it really left me with a bad taste in my mouth for this whole book. i get that the epilogue is there to give you some closure, but i think the book would’ve been better without it.

PD James is my mother's favourite author. I have only read one other book by James, Death Comes to Pemberley, of course, 'cuz duh. I thought it was a fun read for a life-long Austen fan.

Innocent Blood is not a fun read. There are 2 main stories, from the perspective of 2 main characters, that converge throughout the novel. Philippa Palfrey, an intelligent, confident, well-educated, unfeeling, cold girl who has ambitions of being a writer, believes herself to be the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman and a maid. When she reaches her 18th birthday, she requests to find her birth parents. She quickly finds out she is dead wrong. The other main character is Norman Scase. I do not want to write too much about him and spoil the story but I will say that he is one sad sack.

The book is very well-written. I thought the suspense was there and the pacing of the story was wonderful. London was very descriptive and almost a character itself -- which I always love. BUT, I just found it an odd story with a definite ick factor running throughout (there was no surprise for me when the story went "there".) Also, all of the characters are unlikeable. I felt pity for Hilda (Philippa's adoptive mother, whom everyone treats as a joke) but that is not the same as like. Not nearly.

I have another PD James from my mom. I will definitely give her another go. Innocent Blood, unfortunately, just wasn't for me.

Oh My! Well, this is not a book I would recommend to a reader who has never read PD James. Let me start by acknowledging, as many other reviewers have mentioned there is NOT ONE likable character in this novel. They are all repulsive and/or disturbed, physically ugly, moral cowards, and/or emotionally fragile. About a third of the way through I didn't know if I could make it to the end. I do like PD James though, she's got a style that is comforting to me - - makes me feel like I am time traveling back to the 1970s. There are many fine details like the use of pay phones that may make you feel nostalgic as well, in between feeling really icky . . .why did I finish the book anyway? Well, I gave it 3 stars for intriguing me enough to see it through although without spoilers I will say there is a toss off incident at the very end of the book, mentioned for no reason I saw coming, that is Supremely Creepy.

*********From Here On Contains Spoilers***************

This book demonstrates that hurt people hurt people. That broken people are broken. If you, like me, spent the first two chapters asking yourself what the heck is motivating our main character - - the reveal is some pretty extreme early childhood trauma, and then her personality actually makes sense. Doesn't make you LIKE her any more, but it makes her kinda make sense. As for her mother. . . there's a bigger mystery. There is no satisfying answer to her behavior, just a lot of obfuscatory blah blah blah that sounds like it came out of a psychology text book that James was not able to render believable within the plot.

all the characters are purposely unlikeable and complicated in there own ways, the plot was good and the story was interesting and a bit twisted, good but not my favourite