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Innocent Blood

Name: Innocent Blood
Rating: 3.67 (6288 reviews)
Author: P.D. James

P.D. James

3.67 6.3k Ratings

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Synopsis

Adopted as a child into a privileged family, Philippa Palfrey fantasizes that she is the daughter of an aristocrat and a parlor maid. The terrifying truth about her parents and a long-ago murder is only the first in a series of shocking betrayals. Philippa quickly learns that those who delve into the secrets of the past must be on guard when long-buried horrors begin to stir.

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A Great Deliverance

★ 4.03

Elizabeth George

To this day, the low, thin wail of an infant can be heard in Keldale's lush green valleys. Three hundred years ago, as legend goes, the frightened Yorkshire villagers smothered a crying babe in Keldale Abbey, where they'd hidden to escape the ravages of Cromwell's raiders.

Now into Keldale's pastoral web of old houses and older secrets comes Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley, the eighth earl of Asherton. Along with the redoubtable Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, Lynley has been sent to solve a savage murder that has stunned the peaceful countryside. For fat, unlovely Roberta Teys has been found in her best dress, an axe in her lap, seated in the old stone barn beside her father's headless corpse. Her first and last words were "I did it. And I'm not sorry."

Yet as Lynley and Havers wind their way through Keldale's dark labyrinth of secret scandals and appalling crimes, they uncover a shattering series of revelations that will reverberate through this tranquil English valley—and in their own lives as well.

Murder Must Advertise

★ 4.17

Dorothy L. Sayers

Lord Peter Wimsey goes undercover at an ad agency to find out who pitched a copywriter down a flight of stairs—“Delightful reading” (The New York Times).

The iron staircase at Pym’s Publicity is a deathtrap, and no one in the advertising agency is surprised when Victor Dean tumbles down it, cracking his skull along the way. Dean’s replacement arrives just a few days later—a green copywriter named Death Bredon. Though he displays a surprising talent for the business of selling margarine, alarm clocks, and nerve tonics, Bredon is not really there to write copy. In fact, he is really Lord Peter Wimsey, and he has come to Pym’s in search of the man who pushed Dean.

As he tries to navigate the cutthroat world of London advertising, Lord Peter uncovers a mystery that touches on catapults, cocaine, and cricket. But how does one uncover a murderer in a business where it pays to have no soul?

Murder Must Advertise is the 10th book in the Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, but you may enjoy the series by reading the books in any order.

Death in Holy Orders

★ 3.92

P.D. James

From the award-winning master of literary crime fiction, a classic work rich in tense drama and psychological insight.

On the East Anglian seacoast, a small theological college hangs precariously on an eroding shoreline and an equally precarious future. When the body of a student is found buried in the sand, the boy’s influential father demands that Scotland Yard investigate. Enter Adam Dalgliesh, a detective who loves poetry, a man who has known loss and discovery. The son of a parson, and having spent many happy boyhood summers at the school, Dalgliesh is the perfect candidate to look for the truth in this remote, rarified community of the faithful–and the frightened. And when one death leads to another, Dalgliesh finds himself steeped in a world of good and evil, of stifled passions and hidden pasts, where someone has cause not just to commit one crime but to begin an unholy order of murder. . . .

“Gracefully sculpted prose and [a] superbly executed mystery . . . Death in Holy Orders is among [James’s] most remarkable and accomplished Dalgliesh novels.”
–The Philadelphia Inquirer

“An elegant work about hope, death, and the alternately redemptive and destructive nature of love.”
–The Miami Herald

“Absorbing . . . [James’s] plotting and characterization [are] impeccable.”
–Orlando Sentinel

“P. D. James is in top form.”
–The Boston Globe

Open the exclusive dossier at the back of this book, featuring P. D. James’ essay on penning the perfect detective novel.

A Share in Death

★ 3.73

Deborah Crombie

A week's holiday in a luxurious Yorkshire time-share is just what Scotland Yard's Superintendent Duncan Kincaid needs. But the discovery of a body floating in the whirlpool bath ends Kincaid's vacation before it's begun. One of his new acquaintances at Followdale House is dead; another is a killer. Despite a distinct lack of cooperation from the local constabulary, Kincaid's keen sense of duty won't allow him to ignore the heinous crime, impelling him to send for his enthusiastic young assistant, Sergeant Gemma James. But the stakes are raised dramatically when a second murder occurs, and Kincaid and James find themselves in a determined hunt for a fiendish felon who enjoys homicide a bit too much.

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman

★ 3.82

P.D. James

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman introduces bestselling mystery author P.D. James’s courageous but vulnerable young detective, Cordelia Gray, in a “top-rated puzzle of peril that holds you all the way” (The New York Times).

Handsome Cambridge dropout Mark Callender died hanging by the neck with a faint trace of lipstick on his mouth. When the official verdict is suicide, his wealthy father hires fledgling private investigator Cordelia Gray to find out what led him to self-destruction. What she discovers instead is a twisting trail of secrets and sins, and the strong scent of murder.

Echo Road

★ 4.54

Kendra Elliot

When two cross-country cases collide, Bree Taggert and Mercy Kilpatrick join forces to catch a serial killer in an addictive novel of suspense by bestselling authors Melinda Leigh and Kendra Elliot.

During a vicious heat wave, a county maintenance worker stumbles upon two suspicious suitcases abandoned by the side of the road. Sheriff Bree Taggert responds to find two bodies stuffed inside the luggage. The press demands action. The community is on edge. Suddenly, Bree is at the center of a media firestorm.

In Oregon, a senator’s daughter goes missing. FBI Special Agent Mercy Kilpatrick agrees to keep the politically sensitive case on the down-low. When she finds a link between the disappearance and a double homicide three thousand miles away, Mercy takes the next plane out—and lands right in the middle of Bree’s double homicide investigation.

To save the missing girl, Bree and Mercy must work together to stop a killer who’s playing deadly games with the press and stirring up public rage. Hungry for notoriety, he dares Bree and Mercy to catch him before he kills again.

Come to Grief

★ 4.08

Dick Francis

Sid Halley, ex-champion jockey turned investigator, is facing his toughest test.

A number of horses have been brutally mutilated, horrifying their owners and the general public. Even Sid's friend, broadcaster Ellis Quint, has been moved to make a shocking programme about it.

But when Sid is asked to look into the case, the evidence he uncovers points in a startling direction and he finds that his head must overrule his heart.

As friends and associates are angered by his discoveries, so Sid is drawn into a terrible web of conspiracy and intrigue. Escape will require all his legendary wits and cunning . . .

The Killing Kind

★ 4.22

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When the discovery of a mass grave in northern Maine reveals the grim truth behind the disappearance of a religious community, private detective Charlie Parker is drawn into a violent conflict with a group of zealots intent on tracking down a relic that could link them to the slaughter. Haunted by the ghost of a small boy and tormented by the demonic killer known as Mr. Pudd, Parker is forced to fight for his lover, his friends...and his very soul.

Innocent Blood

Books similar to Innocent Blood

A Great Deliverance

Murder Must Advertise

Death in Holy Orders

A Share in Death

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman

Echo Road

Come to Grief

The Killing Kind

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