A review by nonna7
För hennes eget bästa by Elizabeth George

5.0

This book is an emotional roller coaster from the very beginning. A well known artist who has been going through a creative dry spell discovers a body on a foggy morning. Despite the fog she has driven to a spot where she plans to sketch and paint. Because this is the death of a Cambridge student, Elena Weaver, who is also the daughter of a well respected professor who is in line for a lifetime Chair appointment, the Cambridge police request that that Scotland Yard become involved. Lynley volunteers despite having just finished a rigorous and exhausting case. He is wrestling with his own problems: his friendship with Lady Helen has change, in his mind, from friendship to love. She has been spending time with her sister in Cambridge who is wrestling with post partum depression after the birth of her third child. Meanwhile, Barbara Havers, Lynley's partner is confronting the issue of her mother's dementia and the attendant problems that come with that. The book is loaded with red herrings and personal issues of all of the characters. One example is Helen's sister, Pen, who was an accomplished art historian, but whose husband thinks her role should be nothing more than mother and wife. There's a tidbit about the Peacock Room, a dining room that James McNeil Whistler designed. It made me stop reading and look it up. It's fascinating. Google the Peacock Room @ Leyland. The pictures are amazing. This book is a turning point for a lot of people as well as a meditation on what it means to be an artist, a woman and more. I LOVED this book.