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Reviewed by: Annie
Rating: 8/10
Genre: Crime Fiction
496 pages/1997
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A Certain Justice
by
P.D. James
This is the first P.D. James novel I have read, although I have watched several TV adaptations of her work. She is one of my mum’s favourite authors, but I have always harboured some residual prejudice inculcated by reading English at an old university, and it was not until my best friend offered to lend me A Certain Justice that I managed to overcome this terrible bigotry, which is even more unforgivable given my love of Agatha Christie, who escaped the freakish snobbery of my good education by being read for the first time prior to my university studies.
A further inducement to read this book came in the shape of its setting. I have been connected with the Inns of Court for a number of years – the Temple is my favourite part of London, and Middle Temple Garden fulfills in my life the function of village green, being a place through which it is impossible to walk without meeting dozens of pleasant acquaintances. Because of this, the author’s note grabbed my attention straight away:
"Some of the places in the novel, including the beautiful and historic Temple Church, are manifestly real; all of the characters are fictitious and are not based in any way on living persons. In particular, only the perfervid imagination of a crime novelist could possibly conceive that a member of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple could harbour uncharitable thoughts towards a fellow member."
Throughout the book it was clear that P.D. James had done her research well. Her descriptions of the Temple Church stand out particularly in my mind for their accuracy of observation. It was fun to read an imaginary rendition of places I know so well.
I also really enjoyed the play of characters in the novel. The late nineties saw the introduction of chambers administrators or practice managers alongside senior clerks, not all of whom felt comfortable embracing modernization. P.D. James’s fictitious Senior Clerk, Harry Naughton and Head of Chambers, Hubert Langton, express doubts and worries about their place in the brave new legal world in which they find themselves. Without lapsing into stereotype, the author manages to convey the interlacing hierarchies of the small world that is the English Bar.
As far as the murder plot itself is concerned, we are presented with a selection of dysfunctional people from extremely dysfunctional family backgrounds. It would be possible, I think, to feel sympathy for any of the characters acting out the gruesome events of this sordid tale. I particularly liked the way that the life choices of the female detective, Kate, were juxtaposed with those of the criminal whose defense we witness at the book’s opening. Ashe and Kate have come from the same housing estate and experienced the same deprivation, yet when we meet Ashe he is on trial for the murder of his Aunt, while we meet Kate as a responsible member of Adam Dalgliesh’s elite team of police officers. This underscores that however sympathetically P.D. James portrays a character’s background, she expects them to take responsibility for their choices and actions. I like this because it is close to my own view of the world, I suppose: background and history mitigate our choices, but part of being an adult human being involves accepting our past, integrating it and taking responsibility for the choices we make in moving forward.
This novel is unusual because its significant action all takes place in the sub-plot. ‘Whodunnit’ is obvious by the end of the third chapter, but one is compelled to continue reading because, until the last few pages, it is unclear why Venetia Aldridge Q.C. had to die. When all the threads are drawn together, one is satisfied that all possible questions have been answered concisely and well, but is left feeling uncomfortable with the waste of lives that has been portrayed in the novel. I am unsure if it all seems so possible to me because of my familiarity with chambers life, or if it is just so well written that disbelief is suspended for nearly 500 pages.
All in all, I found reading A Certain Justice a rewarding and thought-provoking experience. For the record, I should also record that I found P.D. James’s use of language to be precise and her references so literate that I am thoroughly ashamed of the snobbery I felt about crime novels, and not a little annoyed at my very good, very old university for teaching that genre fiction was not worthy of our time.
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