Ummm. My first PD James and maybe it was a mistake to be this one. Haha. I mean the writing was great (except that there were way too many fawn-colored clothing items mentioned). The story? Weird, sad, depressing, gross, not one single character I could relate to or like at all.

One of the best books I've ever read, but not for the feint-hearted. This is a story of revenge on many levels. It starts off with a young English woman wanting to learn the identity of her natural parents, for whom she has created romantic fantasies to explain their decision to place her up for adoption. The truth is slowly revealed but so are so many questions about the human condition, nature versus nurture, the essence of good character and human frailty. The story asks the question of how far a person will distort truth to be loved, and isn't this but a human quality? And isn't it human to turn our back on someone who did not love us when we needed it most? PD James' genious is reflected in her writing, a style that is inimitable in its beauty and clarity.

As a mystery it was meticulously well-written; meanwhile, as a crime novel it aroused a bit of lethargy.

This is a well-written with interesting twists and turns to the end, but at times it is a disturbing story. The protagonist is unlikeable- on purpose- but she's also clearly a borderline sociopath. It made me curious to know whether the syndrome had been identified by that time or whether the author was just incorporating personality traits she had encountered in her social work.

SPOILERS*************
When the mother dismisses the child's hysteria at being raped as "she wasn't really hurt", I originally thought that was part of the mother's socio-pathy and the protagonist's failure to react intended as evidence of her state of denial. However, when the two women come across a molestation survivor at work who was "shrugging off" the experience, they joke about it and I was left unsure whether the exchange was intended as a reveal of their mutual lack of empathy or were their attitudes more reflective of a societal norm reaction at the time? I found the latter to be chilling.

The parallels between her biological father and her adoptive father while well-written are also disturbing. She shrugs off her incest as "not technically illegal", yet it was EXACTLY that. It was technically illegal because he was her legal adopted father. Further, note one of her earliest memories was being in a library and reading to her "real" father. However, we know from the story that, in fact, she was reading to Maurice, her adoptive father. Which means, on some primal level, that little girl had identified Maurice as her father.

There are a lot of levels to this book and I would recommend the read.

The late P.D. James was dubbed England's "Queen of Crime" thanks to her intricate plotting, complex characters and her frank, unsparing perspective on life and its many complications. "Innocent Blood" is not a mystery, not in so many words. Unlike most of James' other works, the book does not include a murder, not directly at least. Instead, this thrilling story involves the many complications that result from the murder of a twelve year old girl, and the consequences of that heinous act on a circle of people.
The story begins with 18 year old Phillipa Palfrey, the adopted daughter of a highly-regarded sociologist and television presenter and his wife. Phillipa is on her way to Cambridge, and she nurses a great deal of resentment against her adoptive parents. Phillipa takes advantage of a newly passed act of Parliament, which permits 18 year old adoptees to learn the identities of their birth parents, enabling the adoptees to attempt to make contact with those parents, regardless of their wishes. Phillipa applies to learn the identities of her birth parents, and the information is stunning.
Phillipa's birth mother, Mary Ducton is in prison, serving a thirty year sentence for the murder of a 12 year old girl, a girl who only a short time before the murder was raped by Mary's husband, Phillipa's father John. John died in prison, but Phillipa learns that her mother is scheduled to be released from prison after serving ten years, just before Phillipa's studies at Cambridge are set to begin. Against her adoptive parents' wishes, Phillipa decides that she is going to make contact with her mother and offer to live with her in London for the months before she begins her studies at Cambridge. Phillipa's father, Maurice, is strongly against the idea, but he raised Phillipa to exercise her own mind and make her own decisions, and if he had any specific objections to Phillipa's plans, he holds them in reserve.
Phillipa makes contact with her mother at the prison and secures the necessary permission to have her mother released into her care rather than a halfway house. Using only money that she has saved, Phillipa manages to find a small flat above a grocer in a run down London neighborhood. Rather than pass the time together idly, she and her mother take part time jobs as waitresses in a chip shop to earn money to live on. A subtle dance commences between Phillipa and Mary as their relationship begins. Phillipa wants to understand the circumstances of Mary's crime, the crime that resulted in her being abandoned at age 8, but she doesn't want to violate her mother's privacy or force her to relive painful memories. Mary, however, anticipates Phillipa's curiosity and hands her daughter a manuscript she'd already written, one she says she wrote long ago, a confession and explanation of the circumstances of her part in the horrible crime.
The manuscript is a lurid trip through the mind of a murderer, as we see Mary's discovery of her husband's violation of the young girl, her unconscionable response, and their subsequent futile attempt at covering up their crimes. There is, through the whole sordid tale, one notable thing - nowhere in the story is their any mention of Mary and John's eight year old daughter Rose (Rose was Phillipa's birth name, later changed by Maurice.) Phillipa, if she has any question as to why there is no mention of her, chooses not to question her mother about the story.
Not content with playing out this complex family drama, the author introduces another character into the story: Norman Scase, the father of Julie, the twelve year old victim of Mary and John Ducton's crime. Norman and his wife vowed on their daughter's deathbed that they would avenge the heinous crime, but Norman's wife succumbed to cancer while Mary was still in prison. On her deathbed, Norman's wife's last word to her husband is "Vengeance." When he learns that Mary is being released, Norman takes early retirement from his civil service job, sells his house and begins the job of tracking down "the murderess" (as he refers to Mary) in order to seek revenge. Doggedly, without any experience as an investigator, Norman manages to track his quarry, almost accidentally discovering Phillipa's existence and using the connection to eventually track mother and daughter to their little flat.
Norman is clearly emotionally conflicted by the task set for himself, but he feels bound by promises he made to his wife to complete their long planned act of vengeance. As we follow him, we watch the sort of half life Norman makes for himself, checking into a rundown hotel which he uses as a base of operations to spy on the Palfrey house, in hopes of tracking Phillipa back to her mother. Norman makes a connection with a young blind girl who works at the hotel. One day, he invites the girl for a walk in a nearby park, one he knows Phillipa and her mother walk through almost every day. At the park, Norman accidentally makes direct eye contact with Phillipa before taking his companion and rushing away.
James also explores the impact of Phillipa's choice on her adoptive parents, particularly her adoptive mother, Hilda, who feels brutally rejected. She was Maurice's secretary at the time that Maurice's first wife and their child died in an accident. Her sympathetic response to his grief results in Hilda becoming Maurice's second wife, but they are unable to conceive, which Hilda blames herself for. Instead, they adopted Phillipa, an eight year old who they discover on a trip to an historic home; Phillipa is being cared for as a foster child by one of the staff and Maurice and Hilda decide to take her in. Maurice tries to cure the emptiness her wife feels by having her appointed to a panel of referees overseeing juvenile court matters, but Hilda clearly feels too much, identifies too closely with the people she is supposed to be supervising to be happy in the job. Her relationship with Maurice is complicated by her discovery that Maurice was infertile, a fact he learned shortly after the death of his first wife and the child he mistakenly believed was his, but something he'd kept hidden from his second wife, despite her grief at being unable to conceive a child of their own.
Despite his cool academic reserve, Maurice is also affected by Phillipa's choice. His response is to begin an affair with a young student, one not much older than his adopted daughter. Through Maurice's eyes, the reader sees the moment where Maurice discovers eight year old Phillipa, an unusually bright, emotionally distant child who he takes to the vast library in the historic residence and immediately begins testing the boundaries of her young mind. He is clearly captivated with the child, but there is something underlying his response to her that leaves the reader disturbed. Maurice brings his young lover to his house for the first time; they are in midst of intercourse when they are discovered by Phillipa, who came back to the house intending to steal silver she could then sell to finance the remainder of her time with her mother.
It is in the spiteful, venomous back and forth between Phillipa and Maurice that James lets the final shocking secret slip - Phillipa's mother and father terminated their parental rights and gave her up to the foster care system a full six months before the murder of Julie Scase. Mary Ducton was an abusive mother who was at her wit's end with her emotionally distant child and, fearing what her own anger might cause her to do, gave the child to the system.
The revelation sends Phillipa reeling. She returns to the flat, where she has a vicious argument with her regret-filled mother, which leads to Phillipa wishing Mary dead and fleeing the flat in a rage, intending on seeking out some school friend who she can stay with until she goes to Cambridge. It is quickly clear, however that Phillipa has no real idea of what she is doing. She wanders the streets in an emotional turmoil, getting caught in a rainstorm and lost in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Eventually, she has to flee for her life when she encounters a gang of drunken young hooligans who focus their plainly bad intentions on her. She runs in terror; eventually she finds refuge in a dank alley, hiding behind some full, stinking trash bins. It is there, soaking wet, reeking of garbage and terrified that Phillipa has her own sad epiphany - how her arrogance and unfeeling nature, her failure to appreciate what Maurice and Hilda, for all their failings had provided her and her inability to empathize with her birth mother's struggle, led her to that dank, filthy spot.
Phillipa decides to return to the flat and her mother, but first has to get directions from an apparition-like woman who seems to appear out of the fog and disappear just as quickly. Phillipa returns to the flat, to a horrifying discovery - her mother lying dead inside with a knife wound in her neck and Norman Scase, who she quickly recognizes as the man she saw in the park a few weeks before curled up almost in a fetal position. Norman clearly plunged the knife into Mary's throat, but no blood resulted from the stabbing. Before Norman entered the flat, Mary committed suicide by ingesting a bottle's worth of a prescription narcotic she had somehow acquired and kept secret from her daughter. Beside the body, Phillipa finds a note from Mary, urging her to move on and live her own life and not let herself be trapped by Mary's failures and crimes.
Then, in a remarkable, almost uniquely English scene, Phillipa and Norman have a conversation over her mother's dead body. Norman lays out the story of his life since his wife's death, conveying the emotional toll that his quest has taken upon him. In response, Phillipa, in perhaps her first genuine act of empathy, urges Norman to leave the flat before she calls the police. Since Mary died before he entered the flat, she says he's committed no real crime. Instead, she offers to take responsibility for Norman's actions. She does this, in part, because she's confident that Maurice, with his notoriety and connections, will prevent any investigation or scandal from touching her, which proves to be true. Maurice stage manages the entire process of calling in the police, bringing his solicitor to represent her during the questioning and convincing the police to allow him to take Phillipa home.
James provides a fascinating epilogue to the sad affair. Two years after Mary's death, Phillipa has gone on to Cambridge and published her first novel, a story inspired by her birth mother but not related to the events of the story. Phillipa, leaving a church service, finds herself face to face with Norman Scase again. He sought her out after the publication of her novel, feeling compelled to tell Phillipa that he hadn't wasted the gift she had given him. He left London and wandered for two years, finally resolving to live on, then he returned to the hotel he'd spent so much time in while searching for Mary and Phillipa and began a relationship with Violet, the young blind girl he'd met there, a relationship that is about to result in marriage. He sought Phillipa out because she is the one person he can trust to ask how much information he should share with Violet about his life before and the actions that clearly still weigh on his conscience. Phillipa advises him to be discreet; experience has taught her that too much honesty can be as damaging as keeping secrets. Phillipa reconciled herself with her adopted parents. Hilda filled her emotional void with a dog. Maurice took Phillipa on a trip to Italy where, in an odd, chilling final twist, father and daughter resolved the underlying tension in their relationship with a one night sexual encounter. Phillipa and Norman part, both facing the future, freed from the weight of the past. Phillipa wishes Norman well, him having found some measure of grace in new love, Phillipa hoping that such love and grace might be somewhere in the world, waiting for her.
P.D. James was an elegant writer, touching on some of the most disturbing crimes you can imagine with beautiful imagery and exploring the depths of the human psyche with wit and a great deal of insight. "Innocent Blood" is a great example of her ability to bring characters to life and draw readers in to the chilling, exciting worlds she creates.

This book is something of a coming-of-age story, although it's not the usual young teenager. The main character is 18 and planning to go to university (it's a British novel, after all!) as this story occurs.

I liked it a great deal; I kept going back to see what was going to happen. It was a bit tough because the characters were either unlikable or pathetic, with the exception of the woman one character consistently calls "the murderess." And I wouldn't recommend it unless you enjoy the tortured self-reflection characteristic of James' characters (she reminds me of Sayers in that).

Still, that self-reflection gives you some empathy and insight into why people feel/think/behave as they do. And you could read this novel as a study in that complex relationship between parent (real, adoptive, or purported) and child, which seems to be the main theme of this book, as it was in My Abandonment and My Name Is Lucy Barton. Innocent Blood includes a boy unloved by his mother; a father who finds out that his much-loved son isn't really his; an adopted girl; adoptive parents; and parents whose daughter is killed.

The ending, a surprise, felt almost rushed after the detailed and elaborate unfolding of the story. It was also a tremendous emotional relief to see at last the humanity of the story's characters.

Op zich aardig in elkaar zittend verhaal, maar zulke onaangenaam mensen, werkelijk niemand is sympathiek.

5 ☆
Finished reading … Innocent Blood / P.D. James ... 02 October 2020
ISBN: 0140129596 … 313 pp.

The murder happened long ago. This book is about plotting revenge when the killer is released from prison. And that coincides with an 18 year-old adoptee being able to find out details about her birth mother and tracking her down. The story is gripping. It's not so much a whodunit or murder mystery as a psychological study of people in situations far from run-of-the-mill.

The writing is brilliant. Going back near enough to 40 years, it's surprising how dated it already is in some respects, still referring to people as Mr, Mrs, Miss and similar that give away how casual our relationships have become in a relatively short time. On the other hand, discussion of sex issues is remarkably open given the formality of other aspects of the characters' behaviour.
What I dislike about many current writers is how many adjectives, metaphors, similes, examples, etc that they use. P.D. James uses these to a minimum yet she still paints her characters and scenes so vividly.

Highly recommended for anyone who loves really good writing. As one of the blurbs says, this “could be read as a mainstream novel and a considerable one. As a crime novel it is a peak of the art.”

At a personal level, it was a lovely surprise to take this book from my long-deceased mother's collection and find that it is a copy signed by the author. Slotted in the pages was a ticket to an author talk where obviously the book was purchased. I knew my mother was a P.D.James fan but I didn't know that she'd stepped outside her comfort zone to do such a thing as go to a writers festival event. Feeling sentimental about the physical book but that hasn't influenced my review.

[Note that I listened to this book on tape. It was read flawlessly by Michael Jayston and came from Chivers Audio Books.:]

A suspenseful tale of murder, rape, revenge and (I believe, above all) personal growth, PD James’ “Innocent Blood” artfully navigates one of my favorite territories: the physical and psychosocial geography of England – from the grottiest of urban dives with shifty-eyed denizens, to the sadly middle-class suburbs, to the self-conscious upper-middle class districts of the well-educated and gratuitously politicized. You’ve got everything here from Blakean quotes and Victorian paintings, to cramped lounges with “telly”s, to chip shops, urine-soaked alleys and rusted-out vans.

Each of the main characters has a familial relationship propelling him or her through his own personal narrative, and while these relationships vary in circumstances and sentiments, they all share a unidirectional force of passion and the niggling rub of ambivalence.

To begin, Philippa, an 18-year-old adoptee sets out on her mission to discover who her biological parents are – as a means to discover herself. What results is the forming and revealing of relationships that can easily be filed under the category of “strange bedfellows.” To say more would deprive you of the fun of discovering all this for yourself.

This is the first of James’ novels that I’ve read that has a protagonist who, despite the usual unattractive human aspects, maintains a sense of fairness – perhaps due to her ignorance – that kept in me a sense of hope for an optimistic outcome. Perhaps that’s because I’ve only read stories from the author’s Adam Dalgliesh detective series before this. Note that, though Amazon.com says differently, the inspector does not show up in this one.

Molyról "átrugdosott" értékelés.
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Visszafelé kezdem: A könyv legvégén, az epilógusban megemlítenek egy eseményt (hangsúlyozom, nem megtörténik, csak megemlítik, hogy megtörtént valamikor a tényleges cselekmény vége és az epilógus között), amelynek nyilvánvalóan reakciót kellene kiváltania az olvasóból. Mire odaértem, az én reakcióm sikeresen egy egészen csüggedt „Ja. Persze. Naná. Mi más. Tök jó, hogy még felháborodni sincs kedvem… Éljen.”-né redukálódott.

Nagyon alaposan megírt könyv ez csak ne utáltam volna annyira, és azt mondanám, hogy a két fő témája az önbecsapáson keresztül való önmeghatározás, ill. az elengedés, pontosabban annak hiánya, és ez a két dolog valahol önmagunk újrateremtésében ér össze. Nem krimi. Nagyjából a fordítottja azoknak a könyveknek, amelyek elzsonglőrködnek a krimi-kelléktárral, hogy elmondjanak valami teljesen mást. Ez a könyv a krimikellékek helyett kellemes-andalítóan részletgazdag, ugyanakkor *kimerítően* alapos leírásokkal, szó szerint „vészjósló” természeti képekkel és a karakterek által saját maguknak szőtt hazugság-hálókkal halad előre a maga útján, érintve az elidegenedés témakörét. Azután megérkezik pontosan oda és úgy, ahová és ahogyan el akart jutni. Az, hogy nekem ezzel az úticéllal megvannak a magam gondjai, gondolom, egyéni szocprobléma. Objektíven látom valahol, hogy minden valószínűség szerint ennél több csillagot érdemelne, de azt nem tőlem fogja megkapni.

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Ide szoktam biggyeszteni, hogy mi is változott a molyos értékelés óta eltelt idő alatt. Itt nagyjából semmi. Még mindig rühellem minden betűjét, és még mindig úgy gondolom, hogy jobban meg van írva annál, amennyire én ezt értékelni képest vagyok.

Phillipa Palfrey, 18, has researched to find who her mother is. She's known she was adopted but feels she wants to know where and who she's from. She discovers she's the daughter of a rapist and a murderer, not the daughter of an aristocratic visitor and the help at a country estate. Her adoptive parents Maurice, a professor, who lost his wife and son years ago only to marry the only woman in his office who expressed sadness over the death of his son. Hilda feels unloved and unimportant to Maurice and Phillipa; she's more comfortable in the kitchen.

Phillipa finds Mary Ducton still in prison and due to be released soon for the murder of Julia Scase. Her father died in prison. Phillipa visits mom in prison and offers her a place to live for two months before she goes off to Cambridge to be a writer. Mary agrees. Maurice and Hilda think it's a bad idea.

Meanwhile Norman Scase is searching for Mary so he can kill her like he and his wife had planned. (His wife died of cancer)

Phillipa and Mary enjoy this time until one of Phillipa's friends bumps into them. Rather maliciously, he figures somethings out and sicks a journalist friend on them. Phillipa damages the lock to the door and threatens to tell the police that he tried to break in. She goes off to her home to get some money so she can get mom away. Only she finds Maurice there in bed with one of his students. He tells her that the Ductons gave her away before the murder. (thus explaining where she was when the rape and murder happened) Phillipa who can forgive mom murder, can't forgive their abandonment of her. They argue; Phillipa says I wish they killed 10 years ago and runs out to wander the streets all night. Comes back to find Norman confused as to why Mary won't bleed. She had already killed herself with pills. Phillipa gets him out of there, wipes away any traces of him, and calls Maurice who fixes it all.

Epilogue is 2 years later. In healing from the event, Maurice and Phillipa went away to Italy where one night they sleep together. Phillipa now at college and wrote a book. Norman is going to remarry blind hotel clerk. Comes to see her to make sure she'll never write about that night.

Well told and well written. I could have done without Maurice and Phillipa sleeping together at the end.

I am a fan of PD James but this novel was a departure from her usual brand of detective novel and mystery. I think I would have preferred that she had stuck to her usual formula but I guess it is an author's privilege to venture into new territory. Innocent Blood is grittier and more distasteful than what I expected from PD James. Her writing style remains first rate and I found some of her characterizations and descriptions witty, intelligent, and insightful, if not cynical. Philippa's adoptive father Maurice was her best character and the author's depiction of the liberal, socialist professor was bitingly scathing and yet towards the end she reveals a more sympathetic side of him. The author shows little sympathy for his wife, the hapless Hilda, who I found the most likeable of the host of generally unlikeable main characters. The main protagonist, Phillipa is their spoiled and entitled adopted child. We are not intended to like or admire her, but James succeeds in painting a picture of a psychologically complex and enigmatic young woman whose unfortunate past has obviously had its influence on her and may in part account for her cold, unemotional and callous behaviour.

Now for what I liked and did not like about the book.

The first half was pretty boring and I got tired of Phillipa's spoiled, entitled outbursts with her parents. I kept thinking, yeah, this is good writing, but why am I not getting into the story?

I never bought into the Philippa's decision to go and live with her birth mother. It seemed totally unrealistic. Although we are supposed to believe it is because Phillipa wants to discover who she really is and she has no love or respect for her adoptive parents, I just was not convinced.

The mother's character is inconsistent and not well developed. On the one hand we have this controlling and conniving person who is in love with a child rapist and would do anything to protect him. Then we have the gentle, loving mother (who doesn't say a lot) but knits her daughter a sweater to show her love. Given what we find out later about the kind of mother she was, are we really supposed to believe the complete transformation occurred during the years of incarceration? Or, maybe she wasn't such a bad person from the beginning and she only did these horrible things because of her own childhood experiences.

I also got a bit bored with Scase (father of the murdered child) during the build up and preparation for carrying out his planned act of revenge. I admit that James' character development of Scase was skillfully done. I just wanted things to move a little faster.
I actually liked all the references and descriptions of London place names and felt like I knew all the tube lines and stops by the time I finished the book.

I liked the ending. I guessed what was going to happen in Italy, and while it was somewhat irrelevant to the main story line, I thought it was important to the evolution of Phillipa's character and her reconciliation with her past and present.
If you are a PD James fan and have not yet read this novel, my recommendation is: unless you are curious, stick to the Dalgleish mysteries.