home > mystery novel reviews > a certain justice

A Certain Justice

by P. D. James

Here's another well-known and respected writer of great mysteries! P.D. James, now Baroness of Holland Park, has been around for a long time, increasing her following and extending her influence ever since her first published novel (Cover Her Face) in 1959. A Certain Justice isn't her most recent accomplishment, but assuredly one of the finest examples of this author's skill.

A Certain Justice, like all of Ms. James' writing, is very like Ruth Rendell's in that Ms. James depicts each character carefully and lets the reader become totally acquainted with all the psychological aspects of each - but there the similarity ends. P. D. James goes a step further, and in A Certain Justice you are provided with a number of reasons for a possible murder motive well in advance of the actual occurrence.

P. D. James always introduces her protagonist, Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard, in most of her books, although he rarely appears until you're already immersed in the story. A Certain Justice is divided into four separate sections, beginning with Venetia Aldridge, counsel for the defense of Garry Ashe, accused of murdering his Aunt Rita. Rita O'Keefe was a rather ugly older prostitute, always requesting Garry photograph her when she was pleasuring her clients. Although Venetia suspects Ashe may actually be guilty of the murder, her brilliant defense (with Ashe's help) gets him off.

Octavia, Venetia's daughter, lives in a flat provided by her mother in the basement of her home. Octavia is nowhere near as attractive as Venetia, and carries all the sulleness and resentment of adolescence into her present age of eighteen. Imagine, then, Venetia's horror when she discovers that Ashe and Octavia have become lovers - with Octavia's usual disparagement of her mother's interference.

When Venetia is discovered stabbed in her own office, crowned with a judge's wig and doused with someone else's blood, there are all kinds of suspects. Most of them are right there in Chambers, since the reader has already been given enough background information on the judge himself, his possible successors, the lawyers, the Chambers secretary, and even the cleaning women to know that some of them either envy or harbor grudges against the victim.

If there is one fault in P. D. James' writing, it might be it's too wordy. In the third section, titled 'A Letter From The Dead', the letter provided is way too long to believe it written that way by anyone. The author would have better expressed part of the content in a flashback - a different viewpoint of what took place, and the actual letter as a simple condensation and resolution of those facts. The letter is from one of the cleaning women, supplying a portion of the circumstances surrounding Venetia Aldridge's death and explaining the cleaning woman's need for vengeance. The letter is posted to a priest, and opened after the cleaning lady herself is brutally slain.

A Certain Justice is well named. Venetia's background is inextricably tied to a number of those who worked alongside her, as Dalgliesh discovers. Even after Olivia is rescued from a grisly death (though she'll never admit it) Dalgliesh faces the real murderer - without a single trace of evidence he can use to bring the killer to trial. Yet - knowing the killer's background and his tie to the murdered woman, there is certainly a type of justice present.

P. D. James writes beautifully. No fault can be found with her sentence structure or the overall tone of her writing. When I review a mystery book, however, I seldom concentrate on the English language as much as on the story itself. Then if I say a book deserves your attention, I'm telling you the author knows how to tell a compelling tale. P. D. James does both. A Certain Justice retains your interest and holds you spellbound waiting for
the outcome. By all means, if you haven't previously read this author, make up for lost time!

Alan Paul Curtis

Alan Paul Curtis

back