Before I like the story I just love our plummy Lynley and his diamond in the rough Havers. I do so like to see how the two work so amicably together and how they each understand how the other's mind evolves despite one being such a toff and the other from such a homespun background. It adds so much to the conversation and the sparkle the differences between these two that it is now part of the book.
We have a death by fire in a cottage in Kent of a famous cricketeer who was going to play for the English national team. We have infidelity and adultery in spades, we have a possessive, bitter wife and children who now realize that for their father, they are a poor second and then we have the much older woman - definitely a mother figure who does not seem to have very motherly feelings for her protegee. We also have estranged daughters and life threatening illnesses.
Put the lot together and we have a brilliant murder, very well executed and which kept me guessing as to the real murderer till about 50 pages to the end. This in a book which was more than 620 pages so it did keep me going.
Story telling at its best, Elizabeth George's ability to take words and make magic with them is enthralling. Anyone who likes murder, mystery, along with a British stiff upper lip type of theme would love her work.
After my grousing over the weather, we are having rain. We never do anything by halves. We now have flooding in several suburbs and 5000 homeless according to our local paper in the Gampaha district.
I've never read anything by George but the more I read about her work, the more I want to. Great review!
ReplyDeleteI love Elizabeth George but the doorstopper size of her books always puts me off from starting. I know I'll read it pretty quick once started but still find the thick ones daunting to start :-)
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