Reading the Detectives discussion

Welcome to our October Challenge read of the tenth Inspector Adam Dalgliesh novel, A Certain Justice first published in 1997.

Our October read sees P.D. James set her mystery in the legal world of London.Venetia Aldridge QC is a distinguished barrister. When she agrees to defend Garry Ashe, accused of the brutal murder of his aunt, it is one more opportunity to triumph in her distinguished career as a criminal lawyer. But just four weeks later, Miss Aldridge is found dead at her desk.

Commander Adam Dalgliesh, called in to investigate, finds motives for murder among the clients Venetia has defended, her professional colleagues, her family - even her lover. As Dalgliesh narrows the field of suspects, a second brutal murder draws them into greater complexities of intrigue and evil . . .

Please feel free to post spoilers in this thread.

Interesting ending once again. I don't imagine Scotland Yard considered the case a success: two avoidable deaths (Janet Carpenter and Michael Cole), one suspect/murderer shot by the police, another that won't be arrested. However, I didn't mind except for feeling very sorry Cole died. Venetia was so unsympathetic I didn't feel bad her murderer escaped justice and he is an unlikely repeat offender. (Keep in mind this is my opinion for fiction, not for real life.)

I would have preferred Janet Carpenter's confession to be told in some way other than that long letter. Not my favorite troupe.

I'm deleting Roman Clodia's previous post and reposting it below with spoiler tags as it mentioned a potential spoiler for a previous book. Hope you don't mind, RC, I just wanted to be careful in case anyone is reading them out of order.

This is RC's post:

I didn't like the melodrama of that ending and I guessed it would all end in a shootout because of the way the book opens with Kate and Piers on the shooting range - I've never imagined them armed before.

I also didn't like the two confessions, one a massively long letter complete with word-for-word conversations, and then that verbal confession to Dalgleish. Yes, another case where they don't get their man!

I also found it repetitive of earlier books: (view spoiler)[Janet Carpenter's plot of wanting Venetia to suffer through her daughter was the same as Gabriel's motive in Original Sin, (hide spoiler)] and Ashe and his aunt were like a re-run of Darren and his alcoholic mother from A Taste for Death, though given an added twist of depravity.

It's true, though, that these repetitions are more noticeable because we're reading the books close together.

RC wrote: "I also didn't like the two confessions, one a massively long letter complete with word-for-word conversations, and then that verbal confession to Dalgleish. Yes, another case where they don't get their man!

I also found it repetitive of earlier books:.."

I agree about the confessions and also the repetition, but nonetheless I found the whole Ashe/Octavia story fascinating and poignant - it kept reminding me of Pinkie and Rose in Brighton Rock by Graham Greene, and there is even an element of Catholic guilt woven in, although this applies to Janet rather than Ashe.

I was left asking if Ashe really felt anything for Octavia at any point or not - I can't quite make my mind up and think perhaps it is supposed to be ambiguous.

Although it is clunky to put Janet's confession in a letter, with all the verbatim conversations etc, and the whole set-up is unbelievable, I still found it compelling.

I felt that James is less judgmental about Ashe than with characters in her earlier books - she certainly shows how he has been damaged by his dysfunctional childhood.

Although this is nothing like Ashe's experiences, I have seen in bios that PD James's husband came home from WW2 mentally ill and lived in an institution for nearly 20 years until his death, leaving her alone with two small children. So sadly she had experience in her own family of the long-term damage caused by traumatic experiences.

Thanks, Judy, and apologies for having inadvertently included spoilers for an earlier book, that was thoughtless of me - sorry!

Yes, I was surprised that James was unusually sympathetic to the effects of Ashe's childhood and upbringing, and I didn't know that about her husband.

She was very judgmental in creating his aunt, though, especially in describing prostitution as a kind of lifestyle choice because she was lustful and a kind of sex-addict.

That's a spot-on comparison with Pinkie and Rose, Judy! Ashe's menace is palpable on the page, and I found him terrifying, perhaps because most of his power is restrained but always simmering beneath the surface.

Did anyone understand how he knew about the neighbour's glasses in his opening court case? He sends that note to Venetia Aldridge which proves the neighbour was too short-sighted for her testimony to be convincing.

Thanks RC, that's fine. I thought he knew about the glasses because it was actually him who was there, and he had noticed that she had changed her glasses since.

Roman Clodia wrote: "She was very judgmental in creating his aunt, though, especially in describing prostitution as a kind of lifestyle choice because she was lustful and a kind of sex-addict..."

Definitely - this whole portrait was very peculiar. There were characters similar to these in one of the Caroline Graham books, I vaguely remember.

Judy wrote: "Thanks RC, that's fine. I thought he knew about the glasses because it was actually him who was there, and he had noticed that she had changed her glasses since."

I agree and the prosecution should have followed up.

I totally agree about the letter. Not my favourite way of confessing and it didn't work for me.

I thought the first half of the novel worked much better than the second, but I was invested in the story, and characters, by then, so I got carried along.

Yes, I liked the first half better - it was almost like PDJ set up all the lawyer suspects then forgot about them and moved onto a different story.

Did anyone pick up who Dalgleish and the police suspected? They didn't mention a name as far as I recall but all knew who they were talking about amongst themselves.

I enjoyed it and I agree with Roman Clodia that the first half felt better. The end was a bit melodramatic with the shoot-out. I figured out at some point that the wig/blood effort was done by a person other than the murderer and it made sense that it was Mrs Carpenter.

Although this is quite a long book, I did not find that it dragged as much as some of her others have done. The opening of it is a very compulsive read covering the early days of a would be barrister, and a trial scene. The victim being someone who was not at all likable, but interesting. However few of the characters who could have been suspected, proved to be on the dull side. There were a lot of them, and we were given their backstory, but then James seemed to just drop them. It was easy to see where the plot was going, but the journey was not too bad.

So far (and my memory of the earlier books is faulty) I think James is better at setting up mysteries than she is at resolving them.

I think I agree with you, Sandy. Quite a few of them have rushed endings or no clear proof of guilt other than an oblique confession at the end including Shroud for a Nightingale.

Sorry I finished awhile back but didn't realize there was a spoiler thread. I thought some things worked but thought the ending was a tad anticlimactic and that characters were sort of unsympathetic in all. I was sort of annoyed that the daughter would be that gullible and duped so easily. Overall, so so for me.

Is there another novel by this author where Dalgliesh is a more prominent figure in the mystery at hand? Or is there anyone one in this series that someone enjoyed more than this one?

Franky wrote: "Sorry I finished awhile back but didn't realize there was a spoiler thread. I thought some things worked but thought the ending was a tad anticlimactic and that characters were sort of unsympatheti..."

I think my favorite so far is A Taste for Death. The group read it earlier this year so you could check the non-spoiler threads. I think that will also give you each person's rating.

Sandy wrote: "Franky wrote: "Sorry I finished awhile back but didn't realize there was a spoiler thread. I thought some things worked but thought the ending was a tad anticlimactic and that characters were sort ..."

Okay, thanks Sandy!

I struggled getting into this book. I found some of the scene setting at the start far too long. I completely agree with the Rose and Pinkie comparison. I missed why Ashe would want to kill Janet without first getting all the money from her (or did I miss read?)

The ending was disappointing. A shoot out, followed with a confession with apparently no chance of conviction. I struggle to believe that in 1997 forensic teams couldn't find something to pin on the murderer. He moved the body, so there maybe be fibres on his clothes etc.

In previous books there seemed to be reoccurring mentions of fawn. In this book there seemed to be great detail in how people made their coffee. An awful lot of coffee grinding going on!

I've just started and am enjoying it so far. I have observed that in the preceding two novels and in this one, James makes her victims quite dislikable before she kills them off so that it makes it hard to sympathise with their deaths. It sounds terrible, I know, but it has been the effect with me so far!

Piyangie, just in case you are not aware, this is the spoiler thread so you may prefer to post in the general thread until you finish if you are concerned about spoilers.

Glad you are enjoying it. I do agree that she often makes her victims very hard to sympathise with!

Tracey wrote: "In previous books there seemed to be reoccurring mentions of fawn. In this book there seemed to be great detail in how people made their coffee. An awful lot of coffee grinding going on! *..."

Haha, I've noticed this type of thing in James's books too - not sure whether it was this book, but I remember in one of them she spent about half a page discussing arrangements for police to make their hot drinks while working remotely, including details of where the nearest cold tap was! I do sometimes feel she could cut out some of the more mundane details of this type.

Judy wrote: "Piyangie, just in case you are not aware, this is the spoiler thread so you may prefer to post in the general thread until you finish if you are concerned about spoilers.

Glad you are enjoying it...."

Well, I thought since I was refering to the victim, I should post it here. Sorry. But no harm's done, I made it a point not to read the other comments here yet. :)

Piyangie, no need to say sorry, that's fine, I was just worried you might see a spoiler. :)

I enjoyed this a lot, it was definitely one of James’ better books. I didn’t mind the ‘confession from culprit’ letter trope, it was just a bit too elaborate and long winded in its style (even for an English teacher).

I didn’t like the ending though, having found out the motive (presumably from investigating Brian Reynolds), I thought Dalgliesh could have done more to prove his case. I felt sorry that Venetia didn’t get justice, she wasn’t likeable but she wasn’t dishonest or corrupt like the rest of the characters seemed to be

Pamela wrote: "I enjoyed this a lot, it was definitely one of James’ better books. I didn’t mind the ‘confession from culprit’ letter trope, it was just a bit too elaborate and long winded in its style (even for ..."

I didn't like the ending either, Pamela. Apprehending Venetia's murderer was important on two points. First to do justice to her of course, but also to do justice to all the rest of the victims. Had he not killed Venetia, the entire machination would have rolled differently.

Yes that’s true Piyangie. Although it might have been even worse for Octavia I guess. I just feel that there wasn’t A certain justice, there was no justice at all.

One of the better James books thus far, although I agree with others that she still has a tendency to be rather long-winded in her descriptions of non-important elements, and sets up suspects that seem to get quickly forgotten. I actually didn't mind the confessional letter (although I believe it was way too long and detailed to be realistic), nor the shoot out in the end. However, the death of Michael Cole seemed completely unnecessary and cruel. It would only have made sense for him to go there alone if he felt like he could convince Ashe to either surrender or let Octavia go. If his only plan was to get Octavia away, he would have been better off going straight to the police to have them intercede.

Judy wrote: "RC wrote: "I also didn't like the two confessions, one a massively long letter complete with word-for-word conversations, and then that verbal confession to Dalgleish. Yes, another case where they ..."

It seemed clear that Ashe did not actually love Octavia, particularly towards the end as he was fantasizing about killing her, and only decided to keep her around for an alibi and her money. One got the impression he would have eventually murdered her once she was no longer useful to him. He was a severely traumatized man, who was completely incapable of feeling love or affection for another person---it was just too risky for him to let anyone in--that would only open him up to rejection.
I did find his relationship with Cole rather odd. Why would he take the boy to an abandoned cottage in the middle of nowhere to hang out? Even if his intentions were good, he must have realized how much that opened him up to allegations of sexual misconduct (which Ashe eventually used to get rid of him).