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A review by showell
This Body of Death by Elizabeth George
3.0
This book has elements of the Elizabeth George magic, but also disappointments. The good: I continue to enjoy Lynley's character and story arc. His grief is playing out over time in a way that feels true to me. Even the questionable judgement with respect to his personal life rings true. I hate to see him do it, but at the same time I can accept it in the context of a man who was so thoroughly devastated by sharp sudden grief that any path forward seems better than staying caught where he was.
The main mystery was compelling as well. In true George style the characters in that mystery were complex, well drawn, and people that even if you didn't much care for them, you were interested to see what became of them.
Now the bad: the psychiatric reports of the horrific crime in years past. Yes I see why that mattered in the end, finally, but the reports themselves were a slog and preachy to boot. That bit of backstory could have been handled better. It reminded me of What Came Before He Shot Her and all the things I didn't care for about that story (mainly to do with preachiness).
Also, Barbara Havers in this book read like a caricature of herself. Deborah and Simon felt perfunctorily sketched as well, but it was the treatment of Barbara that really bothered me, perhaps because it's been a while since Deborah and Simon were at the core of any of these books in the way Barbara has been. Unlike in the past books, this time around Barbara was reduced to little more than a chronically terribly dressed and unappealing fried food eating chain smoking female sergeant from the lower classes who has a hopeless blind loyalty to Lynley, a willful disgust of anything that smacks of taking care of her own appearance, and a predilection for rushing off and doing things her own way, whatever the orders from above may be. If I'd only ever read this book I would have no idea why Lynley bothered with her at all.
So while I'm glad I read it, and will read the next because I've read the previous 16--I am not stopping now with only two left in the series (also bc I happen to have already bought the next two *cough, cough*)--but this one wasn't my favorite.
If any of you are considering just starting with Elizabeth George, my advice is to start with the first one in the Lynley series and read them in order, and don't feel bad about skipping What Came Before He Shot Her if you start it and find it's not your cup of tea. That one turns out to be not terribly germane to the Inspector Lynley story arc.
The main mystery was compelling as well. In true George style the characters in that mystery were complex, well drawn, and people that even if you didn't much care for them, you were interested to see what became of them.
Now the bad: the psychiatric reports of the horrific crime in years past. Yes I see why that mattered in the end, finally, but the reports themselves were a slog and preachy to boot. That bit of backstory could have been handled better. It reminded me of What Came Before He Shot Her and all the things I didn't care for about that story (mainly to do with preachiness).
Also, Barbara Havers in this book read like a caricature of herself. Deborah and Simon felt perfunctorily sketched as well, but it was the treatment of Barbara that really bothered me, perhaps because it's been a while since Deborah and Simon were at the core of any of these books in the way Barbara has been. Unlike in the past books, this time around Barbara was reduced to little more than a chronically terribly dressed and unappealing fried food eating chain smoking female sergeant from the lower classes who has a hopeless blind loyalty to Lynley, a willful disgust of anything that smacks of taking care of her own appearance, and a predilection for rushing off and doing things her own way, whatever the orders from above may be. If I'd only ever read this book I would have no idea why Lynley bothered with her at all.
So while I'm glad I read it, and will read the next because I've read the previous 16--I am not stopping now with only two left in the series (also bc I happen to have already bought the next two *cough, cough*)--but this one wasn't my favorite.
If any of you are considering just starting with Elizabeth George, my advice is to start with the first one in the Lynley series and read them in order, and don't feel bad about skipping What Came Before He Shot Her if you start it and find it's not your cup of tea. That one turns out to be not terribly germane to the Inspector Lynley story arc.