Author : P.D.James
What is it about : Philippa, the strong-willed and independent minded adopted daughter of the Palfreys, decided on her 18th birthday to track down her blood mother. With a bit of digging around, remember that this novel was written in the 1980s', so no short cutting by using Internet search engines, she discovered to her amazement that her blood mother Mary Ducton was the murderer in the infamous Ducton Murder where a teenage girl was raped and strangled. The story then switched to the father of the murdered teen, Scase, who became obsessed with revenge and decided to stalk the recently released Mary Ducton, with a knife handy. The story built up to a crescendo, almost till the last page, when all matters were settled.
Some thoughts after having read the book : The story line was painstakingly strung out, the details full and vivid, the conversations mostly plausible and the plot patiently built. Few vocabularies were repeated, so not only a crime novel at the peak of its art but also English essays writing at its best - the author had to be one of the Sunday Times Crossword Puzzles contributors. One point I found highly critical and dissatisfying was the cry for sensationalism in the Epilogue where Philippa confided in Scase of her "incest" with Maurice Palfrey, her adopted father; that was just an un-necessary red herring and kind of ended a great book with a warped and twisted tangle of mind - I just could not understand why did the author put that in ?
Would I recommend this book to you : It had been a long while since I last got glued to a great book and totally immersed in the story and the day to day affairs of the stalker, the stalked and the by-standers and the complexity in the emotional upheaval and the study in human relationship of trust, deception and the tricks of memory. So whether you read the book for its excellent English, methodical story plotting or insights into the complex human psychology, I would greatly recommend this book.
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