This Body of Death

The highest compliment I can pay to Elizabeth George is to quote Marianne Moore, who said the ideal of poetry was to create "imaginary gardens with real toads in them." George creates imaginary stories with real people in them. I am not always able to suspend disbelief in the story (buried treasure, for heaven's sake?) but I believe in her characters and I care about them. I loved her last two novels, and I respect her willingness to take risks and her refusal to adhere to a formula. Nevertheless, there are times when you just want "the mixture as before" and in this book she allows us the pleasure of being back on familiar territory. A classic Elizabeth George, and a great one. The full set of "regulars" is there. George has an unsettling way of writing novels that include some and omit others, but this time we get the whole ensemble, plus Isabelle Ardery, who appeared in "Playing for the Ashes" and might be a new "regular." Due to Lynley's absence while grieving for his late wife, Ardery has been put in charge of Lynley's department. Tensions between her and her subordinates arise, partly because of their loyalty to Lynley, and partly because she is not too deft in her management of her staff. (Poor Barbara Havers is confronted with Ardery's non-negotiable demand that Havers dress professionally--which Barbara literally has no idea how to do). Worse yet, Ardery is not quite up to the job. When she urges Lynley to rejoin--as her subordinate--and he accepts, even more interpersonal complications ensue. The plot is complex. I'm never the kind of person who could rise to the Ellery Queen challenge ("Ellery Queen has all the clues he needs. Can you close the book and solve the mystery..."). Fortunately my wife read the book first. George is very good at bringing the inattentive reader back into the picture, but I got lost a few times and had to call on my wife for help. So I can't tell you whether this book functions as an intellectual puzzle. It doesn't matter to me; I don't even care whodunnit, but I do care about Lynley and Ardery and Barbara Havers and Haddiyah. I have a theory that Elizabeth George includes the word "secateurs" in every one of her novels. In this case, she gets it out of the way right away on page 7, quickly freeing me from the distraction and unnecessary suspense of waiting for it.

George does a top-notch professional writing job in the latest novel of the Lynley-Havers series. Weaving a tapestry of history, culture, modern-day London, and New Forest, she creates a fabric of mystery that brings not only surprises to her readers, but information about the continuing characters. Yet --- if you'd never read any other in this series, you would not feel left behind...Her character development is just that good. Even after meeting her and hearing her speak at an indie bookstore yesterday, I still cannot grasp how she makes this tapestry of suspense. TBOD is nearly 700 pages, but it flows like the threads through a loom. There is never a dull moment, truly. If you haven't read an Elizabeth George mystery, this is the place to start .... However, if you plan to read all of them, I suggest starting at the beginning to capture every nuance. Characters and plots like these don't come along every day.

On compassionate leave, Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley remains in Cornwell still grieving the murder of his wife. However, Metropolitan Police acting Superintendent Isabelle Ardery wants to be London's top cop without the acting label. To do so, she needs Lynley to eliminate a potential impediment. Someone murdered Jemima Hastings; the Hampshire native was found dead in a London cemetery. Whereas Lynley's team detests Ardery, they investigate the case. Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers and Detective Inspector John Stewart follow clues to New Forest where animals are welcome and people are not. Meanwhile Lynley returns to London to help solve the Hastings homicide. This is a terrific police procedural that reads more like a psychological suspense than a typical investigation story line. In London and in New Forest, suspects seem everywhere, which makes for a delightfully convoluted inquiry. Lynley is terrific as he grieves for his late spouse yet seems to understand his superior is much more than just an ambitions bi*ch. His team is also fascinating as everyone one of them loath Ardery as an aggressive SOB whose career supersedes case solving and compassion. The Body of Death is a great character driven English thriller. Harriet Klausner

Thomas Lynley is back. For those of you who are fans of Elizabeth George's long running series about DI Thomas Lynley and Sargeant Barbara Havers, this is going to be very welcome news. For not only does this have Thomas Lynley, he's back where he belongs, in the halls of the Met, tracking down the very slippery clues of this psychological thriller. In an overgrown cemetery in northern London, the body of a young woman is found, gruesomely murdered and abandoned. Discovering who she was is going to be a difficult task for the Metropolitan Police, as there is not any identification. All they have to go on is that she has eyes that are different colours, one brown, and one blue. Beyond that there is nothing. It's a tricky case, and it's handed off to Acting Superintendent Isabelle Ardery, a recent transfer to New Scotland Yard, and just a bit prickly. Better make that very prickly, and with one massive chip on her shoulder. On the fast track to the rank of commissioner, and with a working attitude that what she says goes and that she is always right, she's not going to have an easy time of it. Especially with the team that she is handed, namely Winston Nkata, John Stewart, and in particular, Barbara Havers. All of the detectives are rather resentful, and Isabelle turns to Thomas Lynley, somewhat retired from the Met, and a man with a broken heart, if not spirit. He has returned to London from the wilds of Cornwall, and is still a bit off his bearings. She asks for his help in pulling the team together, and with a bit of pressure from Sir David Hillier, Lynley returns, as a sort of advisor to shepherd Isabelle through the case. In Hampshire, two people are vitally concerned with the disappearance of Jemima Hastings. One is her brother, Rob, who works in the New Forest, that hunting preserve that William the Conqueror created in the eleventh century, and the other her best friend, Meredith Powell. While Meredith had a bit of a falling out with Jemima, Rob has been able to keep in touch with Jemima by phone when she suddenly left her partner Gordon Dossie, and decamped to London. Gordon Dossie, master of the ancient art of thatching roofs, is a bit of a loner. And he's happy to be, it seems, with just his dog Tess and an apprentice/helper. It seems that he hasn't missed Jemima much, as there is a new woman in his life, Gina Dickens, a voluptuous blonde who's witty and beautiful to boot. It's something that bothers Meredith a great deal, especially when she pays a visit to Gordon's home and finds that Jemima's car and belongings are still there. Determined to find her friend, Meredith starts her own hunt to find Jemima. In London, the police finally find that the murdered girl is Jemima, and track down her lodgings. There's a fierce, no-nonsense landlady by the name of Bella McHaggis, the other renters, a psychic who may or may not be the real thing, an ice skating instructor and other suspects, including a mentally ill young violinist who m