WITH NO ONE AS WITNESS by ELIZABETH GEORGE

Three adolescent boys murdered in three different boroughs of London and no one thought it was a serial killer until  the first white victim was discovered. Unleashing a spate of public upheaval and media hype over the fact that if black boys were being killed, the cases were put on the back burner and it is only because a white boy has been killed that the Yard is taking some sort of interest  and the officious Inspector Hillier is coming to the fore.

Hillier instead of calming things down makes matters worse by putting Nkata as the face to the investigation purely because he is black, came from a gang and has now made Detective Sergeant. Hillier also comes up with the bright idea of having a journalist as part of the investigation and this leads to disastrous results.

The investigation seems to be going around in circles and it was only at the very end that I cottoned on to our murderer. There seemed to be so many suspects and then more than one murder was not connected to the earlier ones so that whether this was a serial killer, a copy cat killer or just a killer on the loose was not apparent.

I was taken aback by the amount of bureaucracy faced by Lynley, Havers and Nkata in just carrying out their duties. Back biting, currying favour seemed to be the order of the game and whether this is so or not I really don't know. It adds just another twist to the writing of Elizabeth George in whose books nothing is too small for minute detail. That sometimes there is overkill in the details is also apparent.

The stories themselves are very good and I do so like the descriptive parts very much. I like books that take me and plonk me down in the middle of London, Cornwall, the moors or wherever the book is set and Elizabeth George certainly does this.