Rating: 
Summary: Nothing duller than psycho babble--what a disappointment!
Review: The reason you pay a shrink upwards of $65/hour to listen to your endless droning about emotional garbage is because who would do it for free?? To pay for the priviledge of reading the same kind of claptrap disguised as an Elizabeth George novel--she obviously "experimented" with this tome---is a hardship. I particularly resent the fact I saved this book for a long airplane trip. The ending was stupid, to boot. Skip this!!
Rating:
Summary: An off-year for George
Review: Every writer has his or her dogs and we may forgive them if their past entries have given as much pleasure as the majority of Elizabeth George mysteries have done. This one falls under that heading of excusable (but don't let it happen again). There are enough meanderings and red herrings to exhaust even devoted fans, and a plot so mundane and well-tread that on page 50 you dismiss the ultimate solution as too obvious, not worthy of George. Of the recurring characters, Nkata gets the major spotlight while Lynley and Havers drift in and out to less effect than is the rule. At 722 pages, this book is in drastic need of an editor with a pencil; George is good but even she needs an editor.
Rating: 
Summary: Another outstanding entry in a fine series
Review: This is a non-stop page turner from one of the best mystery writers around. I especially enjoyed the way Elizabeth George uses a major character's diary to show the process of psychoanalytically oriented therapy and the psychological changes he went through as his repressions began to unravel. If you like great writing and psychological insights, I highly recommend this book. This is a series with very interesting continuing characters, so if you enjoy this one, give yourself a real treat and read the series in order.
Rating:
Summary: not her best
Review: I was very disappointed in "A Traitor to Memory." I loved EG's previous books, but I thought this one featured very long and long-winded soliloquies from a repellant and boring man who was responding to an old fashioned Freudian psychiatrist. The book is based on the extremely dubious premise that in general people tend to forget very traumatic events, something recently shown to be highly quesitonable, and surely against commonsense also. I should say that I put the book down one-third of the way through; perhaps it got better, but by then I had guessed too much.
Rating: 
Summary: So booring, and so sad she's dropped this far
Review: I'm a George fan. I've read all her prior books in the series and loved them. But this one has bogged down in flipping back and forth between viewpoints that may be taking us somewhere eventually, but not soon. She's tried a technique of story telling that got out of hand; a good editor would have made her cut 200 pages. It's been laying on my shelf 3/4ths done for two weeks, and may well stay there since other reviewers say that the ending doesn't resolve what happened.Sigh. She needs a break. Then she needs to think about the series, and a coherent story, and how to tell that story, and if she is capable of telling it well.
Rating: 
Summary: Read and read over
Review: I LOVED this latest installment of Elizabeth George's Lynley/Havers series. It was so different from the rest of the series (although I love those, too). I was captured from the first and read the book in two days. The main focus was not on the two detectives, which was refreshing. The reader knows all about those characters already, and with this book they learn more about the villains of the piece. Some may find the format a little confusing, but by paying close attention, all the questions are answered. The ending was the best....I love a mystery that lasts all day ......
Rating:
Summary: Great author; Bad mystery
Review: I love Elizabeth George and look forward to every new installment in this series. Unfortunately, this book disappointed me. I don't mind that the usual suspects, Havers, Lynley, Simon and Deborah, are sidelined. I understand that the author might be becoming bored with their stories, and I feel that we readers could use a break from them. Lynley, in particular, is becoming too sanctimonious and hard to take in large doses. For me, the primary problem is the mystery. It was very unlikely in the first place and you can drive a Mack truck through the holes in the plot. You could be forgiven for finishing the book and still not really understanding whodunit and why.
Rating:
Summary: It breaks my heart...awful!
Review: What a relief it was for me to read the three reviews before me! I have always loved George's books...but she must have written this one too fast...I've been struggling with it for two weeks..usually I read her books in two days...and usually I love every page. In this case, I keep getting bored...and now that I've read those reviews I can stop reading...if the ending is that bad, I'm going back to my new Ian Rankin!
Rating:
Summary: Talk, talk, talk
Review: I started reading this series because I was interested in the five main characters. Instead, I am finding that in the past few books, the author isn't featuring them as strongly as she had in her earlier novels. She is now writing very uninteresting, talky storylines which portray too many boring people. What happened to Lynley, Helen, Simon, Deborah and Havers? They seem to be thrown into the chapters as an afterthought. I think their interwoven relationships were more enjoyable to read about than the other characters in this long-winded novel.
Rating:
Summary: Obsession leads to madness and murder.
Review: Elizabeth George's latest entry in her Lynley/Havers series is "A Traitor to Memory". It differs from her previous novels in that it is more intensely psychological and less plot driven. In fact, a great portion of the book is given over to the reminiscences of a psychiatric patient to his doctor. The patient is Gideon Davies, a former child prodigy and a virtuoso on the violin. He has suddenly lost his ability to play the violin and he cannot understand what has happened to him. In an effort to recapture his musical gift, Gideon starts to see a psychiatrist, Dr. Rose, who urges him to delve into his past in order to come to terms with whatever it is that is troubling him. Gideon's past is a tortured and convoluted one. He had a developmentally disabled sister named Sonia who drowned at the age of two and the circumstances surrounding her death have never been completely clarified. Gideon's parents, Richard and Eugenie, divorced after their daughter's death, and Gideon's grandfather suffered from recurring bouts of madness throughout his later life. To top it all off, Gideon's father is a stern taskmaster. He is obsessed with Gideon's talent, and he insists that Gideon's music is the most important thing in their lives. Inspector Lynley and Constable Havers become involved in the lives of the Davies family when a series of hit and run "accidents" prove to be murder and it becomes increasingly obvious that the events surrounding Sonia's death twenty years ago have reached into the present. As usual, George creates realistic dialogue and a large, fascinating cast of characters. These include Gideon's obsessive father, the violinist's bohemian girlfriend Libby (who tries to rescue him from his torment), and Katja Wolff, the German nanny who took the blame for Sonia's death. Was Katja really at fault for Sonia's death or was she protecting someone else? Unfortunately, "A Traitor to Memory" falters at the end. At seven hundred pages, the book goes on at least a hundred pages too long and the plot begins to unravel. There are too many murders that muddy the waters, and the characters act too melodramatically to be believed. However, even with these flaws, Elizabeth George effectively explores the terrain of dysfunctional families, the dangers of obessession, and a favorite topic of mystery writers--how events of the distant past often have disastrous consequences many years later. With all of its flaws, I recommend "A Traitor to Memory" to fans of complex psychological suspense.
|
