Product Details

• Published on: 2006-10-01
• Released on: 2006-10-17
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 560 pages

Customer Reviews

Disappointment in the extreme - really dreadful
How could Elizabeth George even think of letting her fans down like this? I've never before been moved to write a review but this book is a literary crime that cannot go unpunished! (Wish it had gone unpublished though.) Ever since I read George's first Lynley mystery, I've bought each subsequent new one as it was released. I've never been disappointed - until now. That's not to say I don't have some gripes with George; I do. For one, she's long-winded and seems to get more so with every passing book. Readers don't need a description of every locale on a given London road to believe that the author, self-consciously and insurmountably American, has been there. More irritatingly though, and no doubt stemming from the same self-consciousness, her overuse of Brit vernacular and colloquialisms is forced and rings false compared with writers who have nothing to prove in terms of nationality. But to her credit, she has created a cast of winning characters and I tune in every time to see what has happened in Lynley's and Havers' worlds. Especially after the last book shockingly killed off a major character, we deserved to be rewarded for waiting and plunking down our money. I want to know how Lynley is coping, and what is happening with already emotionally-scarred Deborah, who was first on the crime scene. What about Barbara Havers, the character with whose creation George struck pure gold? Both Havers' professional and private lives are utterly engaging ongoing sagas (when will she get together with that neighbor of hers?) and I feel completely ROBBED not to have received the next installment. Worse yet is the book itself, which for all intents and purposes I dumped after a tedious first chapter (I skimmed through the rest of it thinking I could find the parts with Lynley et al. Trust me, they aren't there). George's attempt to write completely outside her milieu and misleadingly foist it on her loyal mystery-reading public strikes me as pretentious and patronizing - towards both the subject and the audience. She is off my "authors to trust for a good read" list. Mystery lovers, wondering what to read now, might try Kate Atkinson's "Case Histories" and "One Good Turn" for superb writing and storytelling with an original approach. The latter, her newly published sequel about detective Jackson Brodie, kept me up all night, entertained and awed. If only Ms. George's latest had done the same.

Hit and miss
I didn't like it. Nice imaginative reconstruction of what led up to a crime being comitted and I hope the tales of life in London are a bit exaggerated but if you're a Lynley fan then avoid. I hope she doesn't get the idea of treating all her novels like this.

Shocking and surprising
(The book seems to be available earlier outside UK - I picked up a copy two weeks ago, I live in Norway)
The latest novel by one of my favourite crime authors, is nothing like any other she has written. The title explains it all, but it took me quite a few pages to realise that this isn't the standard Inspector Lynley novel. This is something completely different, and it's something I have often thought about when I finish the usual crime novel: The story about the offender, the how, the why, the background, the what if... I found the story deeply moving, shocking, disturbing, but also - sadly - very easy to believe in. I'm not sure what I expected as the story unfolded itself. But I am left with a feeling of unease, of sadness, and of helplessness. This is a novel that will haunt me for some time.