Author | P. D. James |
---|---|
Language | English |
Series | Adam Dalgliesh #10 |
Genre | Mystery novel |
Publisher | Faber & Faber |
Publication date | 1 October 1997 |
Publication place | United Kingdom |
Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
Pages | 400 pp (first edition, hardback) |
ISBN | 0-571-19164-9 (first edition, hardback) |
OCLC | 37787677 |
823/.914 21 | |
LC Class | PR6060.A467 C45 1997c |
Preceded by | Original Sin |
Followed by | Death in Holy Orders |
A Certain Justice is a detective novel by British writer P. D. James, published in 1997 by Faber & Faber in the UK [1] and by Alfred A. Knopf in the US. [2] It was the tenth to feature her recurring character Adam Dalgliesh and the book was dedicated to her five grandchildren.
Venetia Aldridge is a brilliant criminal lawyer who is set to take over as Head of Chambers at Pawlet Court, a fictitious London Inn of Court. Then she is found stabbed to death in her room, wearing an old-fashioned wig which has been doused in blood. Knowledge of where to find the wig, and the blood stored in a refrigerator ready for a private operation, indicates that the most probable culprit comes from Pawlet Court itself, where Venetia has made many enemies.
The present Head of Chambers, Hubert Langton, would prefer his successor to be Drysdale Laud, with whom he confers regularly. Dependent on that succession also will be the professional future of more junior members, such as Simon Costello, in whose casework Venetia has discovered irregularities; or Catherine Beddington, who Venetia does not consider able enough to continue in chambers once her pupillage ends. More tenuously, Desmond Ulrick's younger brother had committed suicide in the past while at the school tyrannised by Venetia's headmaster father. And among employees on the chambers staff are other potential enemies: Harry Naughton, the Senior Clerk who is unlikely to persuade Venetia to allow him to work beyond retirement age so as to make ends meet; or the secretary of chambers, Valerie Caldwell, whose delinquent brother Venetia refuses to defend.
In the past Venetia had got off a murderer who went on to commit other crimes. That had been a child rapist, the grandmother of one of whose later victims, Mrs Carpenter, is now employed by the agency contracted to clean Pawlet Court in the evening. More recently Venetia has successfully defended Garry Ashe against the charge of the murder of his prostitute aunt and now faces the unwelcome fact that Garry has become engaged to her savage daughter, Octavia. Could Garry perhaps be more interested in the inheritance that would come to the besotted Octavia on her mother's death?
Hubert Langton reports the murder to Scotland Yard, where he already knows Commander Adam Dalgliesh. The Commander arrives with his assistants, Detective Inspectors Kate Miskin and Piers Tarrant, and together they begin establishing the alibis of all those possibly connected to the case. Among them is the MP Mark Rawlestone, a former bed partner of convenience with whom Venetia has only recently parted acrimoniously. Then there is Venetia's former husband, Luke, now remarried and living in Dorset. As it happened, Venetia had summoned Luke to London to try and buy off Ashe, but his new and much more decisive partner Anna had gone instead. Since this was on the evening that Venetia was murdered, the appointment was not kept.
While the investigation is proceeding, Dalgliesh is contacted by Edmund Frogett, formerly the Deputy Headmaster at Danesford, the school run by Venetia's father. Frogett had initially inspired Venetia's interest in the law and, since she had grown up, he has been following her progress. It is the scrapbook he kept of her cases that he wishes to present to Dalgliesh as of possible use in his inquiries. While following the trials, Frogett had also struck up a friendship with the elderly Mrs Carpenter, who had concealed from him her own vengeful interest in Venetia's career. But before Dalgliesh can question Mrs Carpenter, she is murdered in her flat, though only after sending the local priest a letter admitting her part in the affair. She had discovered Venetia's body already stabbed and had only been guilty of desecrating it with the bloody wig. She also admits that it was she who had bribed Ashe to seduce Octavia so as to make Venetia suffer as her own family had suffered.
Ashe, meanwhile, has taken Octavia on the pillion of his motorcycle and left for the Suffolk salt marshes where he remembers an old childhood haunt. They are pursued by the police and Octavia is only rescued from being murdered by the effective sharp shooting of DI Tarrant. However, it was not Ashe who had killed Venetia. That was the work of Ulrick, whose niece is married to the threatened Simon Costello, though there is no substantial evidence that could convict him.
The phrase used as the novel's title occurs near the end of its final chapter. There the lawyer Ulrick comments ironically to the lawman Dalgliesh that there is no such thing as absolute justice. "It is good for us to be reminded from time to time that our system of law is human and, therefore, fallible and that the most we can hope to achieve is a certain [kind of] justice."
The comment on the limitations of human judicial institutions demonstrated in the novel has since been considered profound enough to be quoted in a theological essay [3] and a work on international legislation, [4] as well as an academic literary study of the concept of law as presented in James's novel. [5]
The 2020 Faber reissue of the novel featured on its new cover praise from the 1997 review in The Sunday Telegraph , "Ingenious and beautifully written, this is P. D. James at her highly impressive best". [6] In his review for The New York Times , Ben Macintyre also praised A Certain Justice as "vintage James" and summarised it as "a book in which revenge is not quite sated and deserts are not always just. That may not be the most satisfying conclusion, but it contains a certain truth." [7] In addition, the Denver Post comments on how the book's literary excellence transcends the limitations of its genre: "More than anything else [it] demonstrates the fine and rare art of good fiction. Yes, this is a detective novel, but it is first and foremost a novel." [8]
A television version of A Certain Justice was produced for Britain's ITV network in 1998 as a three-episode mini-series [9] and another was made in 2023 for Channel 5 as the second in its Dalgliesh series. [10]
A one and a half hour BBC radio drama written by Neville Teller was produced in 2005 and repeated thereafter. This opens with a phone call from Edmund Frogett to Dalgliesh, offering him information relative to the case. [11]
Phyllis Dorothy James White, Baroness James of Holland Park,, known professionally as P. D. James, was an English novelist and life peer. Her rise to fame came with her series of detective novels featuring the police commander and poet, Adam Dalgliesh.
Death in the Clouds is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, published in 1935. It features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and Chief Inspector Japp. It is a "closed circle" murder mystery: the victim is a passenger on a cross-Channel aircraft flight, and the perpetrator can only be one of eleven fellow-passengers and crew.
Something Fresh is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published as "Something New" in the United States, by D. Appleton & Company on 3 September 1915. It was published in the United Kingdom as "Something Fresh" by Methuen & Co. on 16 September 1915. There are a number of differences between the American and British versions, but essentially, it is the same book. The novel introduces Lord Emsworth of Blandings Castle, whose home and family reappear in many of Wodehouse's later short stories and novels.
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman is the title of a detective novel by English writer P. D. James and of a TV series of four dramas developed from that novel. It was published by Faber and Faber in the UK in 1972 and by Charles Scribner's Sons in the US.
Cordelia Gray is a fictional character created by English author Phyllis D. James. Gray is the protagonist of two novels, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972) and of The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982). Cordelia Gray is a young woman who works as a private detective in London, having inherited the detective agency "Pryde" on the death of her boss, Bernie Pryde, who committed suicide.
Adam Dalgliesh is a fictional character who is the protagonist of fourteen mystery novels by P. D. James; the first being James's 1962 novel Cover Her Face. He also appears in the two novels featuring James's other detective, Cordelia Gray.
Mrs McGinty's Dead is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in February 1952 and in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 3 March the same year. The US edition retailed at $2.50 and the UK edition at nine shillings and sixpence (9/6). The Detective Book Club issued an edition, also in 1952, as Blood Will Tell.
Unnatural Causes is a detective novel by English crime writer P. D. James. The third to feature Adam Dalgliesh, it was published in the UK by Faber & Faber in 1967 and by Charles Scribner's Sons in the US. A paperback edition followed the same year. An adaptation of the novel was filmed for television in 1993.
The Lighthouse is a 2005 detective novel by English writer P. D. James, the thirteenth book in the Adam Dalgliesh mystery series.
Roy Marsden is an English actor who portrayed Adam Dalgliesh in the Anglia Television dramatisations (1983–1998) of P. D. James's detective novels, and Neil Burnside in the spy drama The Sandbaggers (1979–1980).
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The Murder Room is a 2003 detective novel by English writer P. D. James, the 12th in the Adam Dalgliesh series. It takes place in London, particularly the Dupayne Museum on the edge of Hampstead Heath in the London Borough of Camden.
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Original Sin is a 1994 detective novel by English writer P. D. James, part of her Adam Dalgliesh series. It is set in London, mainly in Wapping in the Borough of Tower Hamlets, and centers on the city's oldest publishing house, Peverell Press, headquartered in a mock-Venetian palace on the River Thames.
Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh is a 1995 American supernatural horror film directed by Bill Condon and starring Tony Todd, Kelly Rowan, William O'Leary, Bill Nunn, Matt Clark and Veronica Cartwright. Written by Rand Ravich and Mark Kruger, it is a sequel to the 1992 film Candyman, which was an adaptation of Clive Barker's short story, "The Forbidden". Its plot follows a New Orleans schoolteacher who finds herself targeted by the Candyman, the powerful spirit of the murdered son of a slave who kills those who invoked him.
Cover Her Face is the debut 1962 crime novel of P. D. James. It details the investigations into the death of a young, ambitious maid, surrounded by a family which has reasons to want her gone – or dead. The title is taken from a passage from John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi: "Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle; she died young," which is quoted by one of the characters in the novel.
Death of an Expert Witness is a detective novel by English writer P. D. James, the seventh of her Adam Dalgliesh series. It was published in 1977 in the UK by Faber and Faber, and in the US by Charles Scribner's Sons. Set in the Fens, it follows the investigation of the murder of a senior scientist at a police laboratory where his colleagues are too experienced to have left clues.
Jane Gillson Langton was an American author of children's literature and mystery novels. She also illustrated her novels.
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