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Elizabeth George
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Book
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Publisher | Hodder & Stoughton | ||
ISBN | 978-034092299 | ||
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Reviewer
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Deborah
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Synopsis
Elizabeth George's masterly new novel brings Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley back onto centre stage in an intricate crime drama. While DI Thomas Lynley is still on compassionate leave after the murder of his wife, Isabelle Ardery is brought into the Met as his temporary replacement. The discovery of a body in a Stoke Newington cemetery offers Isabelle the chance to make her mark with a high profile murder investigation. Persuading Lynley back to work seems the best way to guarantee a result: Lynley's team is fiercely loyal to him and Isabelle needs them - and especially Barbara Havers - on side. The Met is twitchy: a series of PR disasters has undermined its confidence. Isabelle knows that she'll be operating under the unforgiving scrutiny of the media, so is quick -- perhaps too quick -- to pin the murder on a convenient suspect. The murder trail leads Lynley and Havers to the New Forest, and the eventual resolution of the case. Its roots are in a long-ago act of violence that has poisoned subsequent generations and its outcome is both tragic and shocking.
Review
I always look out for a new Elizabeth George novel and this Inspector Lynley didn't disappoint. As usual, the book was very well researched - so much so, that it was very disturbing in places. The references to a child abduction and murder by children is very upsetting. As the mother of young children when Jamie Bulger was killed many years ago, I was reading these chapters through my fingers and the story flashes back without the reader knowing who's past we are looking into.
Inspector Lynley followers will know about the death of his beloved wife in the last novel, and we meet him again as he is trying to pick up the pieces. Isabelle Ardery, a temporary replacement is brought in to run Lynley's department - and she manages to talk Lynley into coming back to help her. Isabelle is an interesting character - a raging alcoholic who's lost custody of her children, but not very likeable; she nags Barbara Havers into dressing in a more business like way for work - and it is quite comical to visualise Havers and her 9 year old neighbour Hadiyyah shopping for skirts in M & S!
A young woman is found stabbed to death in a London cemetery, which is under the jurisdiction of Ardery and the team - but in the New Forest, Meredith is looking for her friend Jemima and is convinced that the quiet, mild-mannered thatcher, Gordon Jossie has something to do with her disappearance. Unfortunately, because Isabelle is feeling pressured to find the murderer quickly, she finds the suspect who looks most likely and messes up big time! The conclusion is quite bloody, and sad - I felt a lot of sympathy for one of the characters, despite their violent past.
The thing about Elizabeth George novels is her attention to detail and the fantastic characters she writes - almost to the point that you aren't desperate to read on to find out whodunnit, just more about each person within the story. I actually wanted to know more about Jemima's Figaro though. As the proud owner of an Emerald Green Figaro, with the ability to bore someone rigid with the car's Japanese history, I wanted a few more details, other than it had been stored in the barn!
Lynley finds a somewhat unexpected sexual encounter but poor old Havers doesn't and sadly Hadiyyah's mother arrives home to revive the family unit so the gentle chemistry she has with Hadiyya's father, Azhar, comes to a disagreeable halt (until the next novel, I suspect!)
A brilliant book and I really enjoyed reading it.
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