{"product_id":"innocent-blood","title":"Innocent Blood","description":"Review      As a crime novel it is a peak of the art. ― The TimesI found my heart racing as the climax neared. ― Evening StandardA fascinating psychological study of blood ties, guilt and revenge. ― Sunday TelegraphSuspenseful and tautly written - the psychological twists and turns will tantalize the reader as cunningly as a well-placed clue. ― New York TimesThe Le Carré of crime . . . Her sense of place and atmosphere is superb, with rich descriptions of modern London's seediness, the feel of its tatty, echoing streets and empty rooms, the smell of its greasy cafes and lonely libraries. ― Daily ExpressA superbly intelligent crime novel with a difference. ― Woman's JournalThe actions and changes that occur to the three main characters are slotted together with real skill. My anxiety level was sky high by the time the story resolved itself. -- Gillian SlovoOutstanding . . . The book builds up the suspense in a masterly manner which will keep thriller connoisseurs content throughout. ― Bolton Evening News      Product Description      A stand-alone thriller from P. D. James.Philippa Palfrey, adopted as a child, believes herself to be the motherless, illegitimate daughter of an aristocratic father. At eighteen she exercises her right to find out the truth. What she discovers will change her life forever. Philippa enters a new and terrifying world and soon comes to realize that she is not the only one interested in her parents' whereabouts.Innocent Blood is both a mystery and a thriller, a superb novel that explores the themes of self-identity and the meaning of life.      Book Description      Innocent Blood is a stand-alone thriller and chilling mystery from P.D. James, the bestselling author of Death Comes to Pemberley and Children of Men.      About the Author      P. D. James (1920-2014) was born in Oxford and educated at Cambridge High School for Girls. From 1949 to 1968 she worked in the National Health Service and subsequently in the Home Office, first in the Police Department and later in the Criminal Policy Department. All that experience was used in her novels. She was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Royal Society of Arts and served as a Governor of the BBC, a member of the Arts Council, where she was Chairman of the Literary Advisory Panel, on the Board of the British Council and as a magistrate in Middlesex and London. She was an Honorary Bencher of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. She won awards for crime writing in Britain, America, Italy and Scandinavia, including the Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award and The National Arts Club Medal of Honor for Literature (US). She received honorary degrees from seven British universities, was awarded an OBE in 1983 and was created a life peer in 1991. In 1997 she was elected President of the Society of Authors, stepping down from the post in August 2013.Tributes to P.D. James (1920- 2014)From Stephen Page's Tribute to P.D. James , given at the Memorial Service in London on 29th April, 2015Phyllis had a long writing career of over fifty years that began surprisingly late. She embarked on Cover Her Face in her mid-thirties. In her autobiography, Time to Be in Earnest, she admitted some regret that she didn't start earlier, saying that 'a streak of indolence . . . made it more agreeable to contemplate the first book rather than actually write it'. Yes, the well-known indolence of P. D. James! ....Despite a later start she leaves an impressive body of work comprising nineteen brilliant and original novels, and three works of non-fiction, all of which continue to be read throughout the world. To her the choice of detective fiction was simply obvious, but she made it her own and stamped an originality and literary quality upon the genre like no other writer before her. She said that she wrote detective novels for the reasons readers are fascinated by them, for what she called 'the catharsis of carefully controlled terror' and the bringing o","brand":"Faber \u0026 Faber","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40447192170581,"sku":"9780571350766N","price":5.39,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/3a20d1b7-bd55-4152-a47f-2da09b038ab4.jpg?v=1670772550","url":"https:\/\/smeikalbooks.co.uk\/products\/innocent-blood","provider":"smeikalbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}