Kindle British Mystery Book Club discussion

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A Certain Justice
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Main Read January 2022: A Certain Justice, by P.D. James
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Bill
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rated it 4 stars
Jan 07, 2022 04:27AM

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I liked it. A proper mystery beautifully set in surroundings so well-described you could see them in your minds-eye. The fact that the murder and the police don't turn up until a fair way in did not detract at all, and all the clues were there up-front too, not thrown in towards the end.
3/5

It was truly a moving experience to return to the shrine. After enjoying the guilty pleasures of many 99p. specials, I found it so satisfying to read crime fiction of real excellence, with better and more believable characters than we find in most ‘literary� fiction. In P. D. James’s stories I’m especially fond of the faint but firm undertone of real Anglican spirituality, and in A Certain Justice we also have an Anglo-Catholic priest and the sacrament of confession, but also a convent and a mother-superior. And like many Americans of taste, I also love the trappings of the English law courts, with barristers, especially Silks, in wigs and gowns and robed justices addressed as ‘m’lud� as well as defendants in the dock. And we also have the Chambers at the Inns of Court, here the Middle Temple. Veneta Aldridge is an unlikeable but interesting QC who specialises in criminal defence, which makes her an ironic but appropriate victim.
I’ve not read all the Adam Dalgliesh (a name I never can spell without checking) series but find him a character whom I admire without really liking. (I never forgave Baroness James for dropping Cordelia Gray, though I’m aware it was the fault of the BBC.) My favourite of James’s books remains Innocent Blood, a heart-breaking story of how love and good intentions are insufficient without ingegrity. Like that book, though, A Certain Justice features characters obsessed with a quest for a kind of justice our world cannot provide. (The title is both revealing and ironic, as we find at the conclusion.) Still, I didn’t enjoy it as a mystery. I thought the author pulled too many characters and incidents ad lib out of the backstory. When the author conceals important facts till they finally emerge in the course of the investigation, the reader scarcely has a chance to sport the villain, though I give myself marks for spotting who didn’t do it. The plot also relies on at least one plan much too complicated to be believable in real life. So, I’ll hold my award at four stars. But for setting, style, and spiritual and moral values, A Certain Justice was most worthy of an author whose absence from the literary world is most to be regretted.
I'd be interested if others found this one a bit wanting as a pure mystery story.
I’ve not read all the Adam Dalgliesh (a name I never can spell without checking) series but find him a character whom I admire without really liking. (I never forgave Baroness James for dropping Cordelia Gray, though I’m aware it was the fault of the BBC.) My favourite of James’s books remains Innocent Blood, a heart-breaking story of how love and good intentions are insufficient without ingegrity. Like that book, though, A Certain Justice features characters obsessed with a quest for a kind of justice our world cannot provide. (The title is both revealing and ironic, as we find at the conclusion.) Still, I didn’t enjoy it as a mystery. I thought the author pulled too many characters and incidents ad lib out of the backstory. When the author conceals important facts till they finally emerge in the course of the investigation, the reader scarcely has a chance to sport the villain, though I give myself marks for spotting who didn’t do it. The plot also relies on at least one plan much too complicated to be believable in real life. So, I’ll hold my award at four stars. But for setting, style, and spiritual and moral values, A Certain Justice was most worthy of an author whose absence from the literary world is most to be regretted.
I'd be interested if others found this one a bit wanting as a pure mystery story.
