Although A Certain Justice begins with news of a murder, the victim isn't set to die for another four weeks. Publicly respected but privately loathed, Venetia Aldridge has far more enemies than a brilliant London criminal lawyer should--and at least one of them is determined to do her in. Venetia plies her superior trade in courts that harbor "the illusion that the passions of men were susceptible to order and control," but her past and private life are exceedingly unruly. Her married lover is intent on giving her up; her daughter loathes her; her fellow barristers are determined that she not become the next head of chambers. Even the cleaning women seems to have something on her. The outline alone of this complex novel would take pages (as would the eclectic inventory of players), but P. D. James makes us admire far more than her brilliantly developed plot. James in fact creates a crowded gallery of surprisingly decent suspects, along with one suitably vile creature--who happens to be Aldridge's last client. A superior murder mystery, A Certain Justice is also a gripping anatomy of wild justice. James's characters can be overcome by hate, but she is equally concerned with love's manifestations--human, divine, destructive, and healing.


From School Library Journal
YA?Venetia Aldridge, a brilliant barrister, has "four weeks, four hours and fifty minutes left of life." By the time her murder is discovered, readers have not only met most of the suspects, but have also begun to sympathize with whomever might have done her in. Everyone in the victim's life, from her 18-year-old daughter to the retiring head of chambers, from her former lover to the cleaning woman, has cause to have wished her ill. Adam Dalgleish, James's poetry penning sleuth, and his assistants, especially Kate Miskin, investigate the many possible suspects. After much examination of the past and present, the murderer is discovered and A Certain Justice is meted out. As with many of the author's mysteries, psychology and motivation are as important as whodunit and the conundrum presented here is thought-provoking. Much of the action centers around the rebellious daughter and there is a suspense-filled scene in which she and her psychopathic boyfriend try to evade Dalgleish, only to have young Octavia discover that she needs to evade the boyfriend instead. YAs who enjoy James and those ready for a bit of a fright with their English mysteries will surely take to this adventure.?Susan H. Woodcock, Kings Park Library, Burke, VACopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
The incomparable James is at the top of her form in her 13th novel, successor to Original Sin. Called in to investigate the murder of barrister Venetia Aldridge in Temple Court, Scotland Yard Commander/poet Adam Dalgliesh and his team find that the death is merely the centerpiece around which swirl other crimes and the dirty little secrets of Aldridge's fellow barristers. James interweaves crimes old and new in this brilliantly plotted novel that depicts the many faces of the human psyche and contemplates the question, "What is justice?" Essential.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Entertainment Weekly
James hasn't' lost her knack for devising labyrinthine pots tricked up with old-fashioned misdirection. And for all her traditionalism, she injects a startling dose of cynicism into the proceedings. Following a jaw-dropping twist at the very end of A Certain Justice, we're left with the genre-subversive notion that justice can sometimes be snookered.


The New York Times Book Review, Ben Macintyre
James's people are wounded, compromised, familiar souls, whose quotidian frailties are exposed through an eye that is more sharp than generous, often witty but seldom funny. Around her central drama, James creates these smaller worlds with forensic precision, using incredible and melodramatic death to illustrate credible and movingly recognizable lives.


From AudioFile
P. D. James constructs an intricate mystery wound about the labyrinthine politics of the English law office of Middle Temple Chambers. Commander Adam Dalgleish uses his finely tuned instincts to sort out the suspects in the baffling murder of the ambitious, uncompromising barrister, Venetia Aldridge. Narrator Michael Jayston's brilliant narration is a mastery of understatement finely tuned to the nuances and shadings of James's characters. Listeners are never aware of a "narrator," yet he unfolds the story deliberately with each twist and turn carefully laid out. Jayston subtly distinguishes the clerks, police officers and lawyers, making the author's careful scrutiny of the characters keenly felt. Jayston rivets listeners' attention from the opening passages. This unabridged recording, available simultaneously with the hardcover print edition, is a sign of the maturing audiobook market. R.F.W. Winner of AUDIOFILE's Earphones Awards (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Kirkus Reviews
Four weeks after she's defended Garry Ashe on a charge of murdering his disreputable aunt--in a bravura sequence that provides the most electric opening of any of James's novels--his barrister, brilliant, aloof Venetia Aldridge, is found stabbed to death in her chambers with a paper-knife, a barrister's wig on her head and her corpse soaked in fresh blood. Commander Adam Dalgliesh and his squad naturally suspect Ashe, a plausible sociopath who's improved sufficiently on his acquaintance with Venetia to engage himself to her sadly neglected daughter Octavia Cummins. But Ashe provides an alibi, and Dalgliesh turns to other members of chambers: the retiring head; Venetia's rival to succeed him; the colleague whose jury tampering three years ago Venetia had just discovered; and the doting uncle of that colleague's wife. Under Dalgliesh's patient, tough-minded examination, the junior candidates for tenancy in chambers reveal their own fierce rivalries and fiercely divided motives; so do the clerks, members of the support staff, their families, their ex-spouses, their housemates, until finally a pattern of unspeakable hurt and diabolical revenge begins to emerge. In James's severely Darwinian view of the species, everyone is programmed with memories of traumatic past sufferings, and everyone does whatever it takes to survive. It's left to Dalgliesh and Inspectors Kate Miskin and Piers Tarrant to succor the survivors and count the heavy costs. Even more perfectly than the publishing house in Original Sin (1995), Venetia's law chambers provide James with the ideal arena for her boundlessly compassionate probing of human frailty and for the shivery hope of goodness. (First printing of 250,000; Book-of-the-Month Club selection) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"P.D. James is an addictive writer, [with] a quality of intelligence, a genuine curiosity about character, and an ability to describe the density of little known lives." --Anita Brookner

"A page-turning journey ... along the darker, twisted byways of human intentions." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A Certain Justice has all James' hallmarks: elegance of language, a stellar sense of place, exquisitely defined characters, and a skillfully rendered tale of moral justice." --The Globe and Mail


"A whacking great whodunit." --The Calgary Sun





From the Trade Paperback edition.


Review
"P.D. James is an addictive writer, [with] a quality of intelligence, a genuine curiosity about character, and an ability to describe the density of little known lives." --Anita Brookner

"A page-turning journey ... along the darker, twisted byways of human intentions." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A Certain Justice has all James' hallmarks: elegance of language, a stellar sense of place, exquisitely defined characters, and a skillfully rendered tale of moral justice." --The Globe and Mail


"A whacking great whodunit." --The Calgary Sun





From the Trade Paperback edition.

FROM OUR EDITORS

A brilliant barrister's defense of a charming sociopath goes horribly wrong when the sociopath engages himself to her daughter, and the barrister herself is found dead in her chambers -- a tight little world peopled with mincing suspects whom it's Commander Adam Dalgliesh's job to unmask.

—Tom Leitch

ANNOTATION

P.D. James was awarded the 1999 Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In a masterful new Adam Dalgliesh mystery, P.D. James enters the labyrinthine world of the law, forging a deeply compelling human drama from the complex passions that lie behind both murder and justice.


From the Paperback edition.

FROM THE CRITICS

School Library Journal

Venetia Aldridge, a brilliant barrister, has "four weeks, four hours and fifty minutes left of life." By the time her murder is discovered, readers have not only met most of the suspects, but have also begun to sympathize with whomever might have done her in. Everyone in the victim's life, from her 18-year-old daughter to the retiring head of chambers, from her former lover to the cleaning woman, has cause to have wished her ill. Adam Dalgleish, James's poetry penning sleuth, and his assistants, especially Kate Miskin, investigate the many possible suspects. After much examination of the past and present, the murderer is discovered and a certain justice is meted out. As with many of the author's mysteries, psychology and motivation are as important as whodunit and the conundrum presented here is thought-provoking. Much of the action centers around the rebellious daughter and there is a suspense-filled scene in which she and her psychopathic boyfriend try to evade Dalgleish, only to have young Octavia discover that she needs to evade the boyfriend instead. YA's who enjoy James and those ready for a bit of a fright with their English mysteries will surely take to this adventure. Susan H. Woodcock, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA

AudioFile - Robin F. Whitten