Rating: 
Summary: so disappointed
Review: NOW I know why reviews are written on Amazon by customers. It's really helpful. I am still mulling in the book, wondering if I'll ever get to the end...where is she going with this..why do we need to beat this up one more time? I really think the tripsy back and forth is making me dizzy and certainly has detracted from my reading enjoyment.
Rating: 
Summary: Not that excellent.
Review: This is my first George novel and I'm not impressed and it was a bit gloomy than I expected.
Rating: 
Summary: Save yourself from wasting time!
Review: I am by and large a big fan of Elizabeth George. I've read all of her books and couldn't wait until I read this one as well. I have to say I'm sorry I wasted my time! It was not up to her previous standard. All of her usual characters are barely mentioned while the reader is subjected to the "diary" of the self-absorbed violinist Gideon ad nauseum! The timing between the diary and the other narrative was confusing. But worst of all was the ending. After investing over 700 pages worth of my time, I couldn't believe the way the book ended!!!!!! It was the most unsatisfying conclusion to a book I can ever remember!!!! It you are a George fan and feel that you MUST read this book, do yourself a favor and just read the last two chapters. You'll be just as disappointed but you'll know all the pertinent facts without having wasted as much of your time.
Rating:
Summary: Too long, too slow
Review: I love Elizabeth George and would read her grocery list and be entertained, so saying bad things about this book makes me feel disloyal. It was too long, and hard to get intested in, it moved slowly and I got to know some characters too well, while missing the characters I love getting to know more about, i.e. Barbara Havers, Deborah and Simon, Helen, and all their intricate connections from the past. Please, Elizabeth, keep their stories going and let us have their characters keep growing and changing...let them "star" and the story and new characters be their setting and scenery and cast. I love the England you portray. I lived there for a year in 1985 and thoroughly enjoy the vocabulary and the well drawn English-isms, and the fleshed out, yet stereotyped people I actually knew and called friends. Your books are my favorites! I am always anticipating the next one!
Rating:
Summary: "Better" is the worst enemy of "best"
Review: Elisabeth George is one of my favourite authors and I've read all her books so far. Nothing needs to be said about her excellent characters, wonderfull language and imaginative plots. This time Elisabeth George tried to do better and ended up with a book that compares very badly to her previous ones. It is too twisted, with an uneccessarily complicated narrative which makes it tiring to read. Our beloved characters play a minor role, the plot suggests that the writer possesses a rather disturbed mind and the end leaves a bitter, sad and hollow aftertaste. Evidently Elisabeth George is a victim of her own success as she tried a new recipe without having the guts (as Grisham did with "The Painted House") to entirely abandon the old one. Everyone is allowed a mistake once is a while. I do hope that Elisabeth George gets back on track both for her own and her readers' sake.
Rating: 
Summary: A captivating book
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I didn't mind the length because it gave George the space to let us get into the heads of several of the characters. I felt like she was showing the reader a side of each of her characters that would make him or her possibly the murderer. Each of the characters became a better and better candidate for murderer as their personality developed. I liked the entertwining of the lives of the characters. This murder was definitely caused by the event that took place 20 years before and the changes that we see in the main characters in the first murder are credible. I found the ending to be perfect. It showed the reader the heart of the murderer and was consistent with the personality developed throughout the book and yet the way it ended was a big surprise. From a psychological viewpoint it came full circle.
Rating: 
Summary: Not your typical murder mystery
Review: I am a big fan of Lynley and Havers ~~ but they're not as represented in this book like I had hoped. This book was written mostly about the musical genius Gideon and his struggles in figuring out why he was blocked from playing his violin. It starts out as a woman gets run over in a busy London street but it doesn't pick up till the police realize that Eugenie Davies was murdered ~~ she was hit by a car, then the car backed up and ran over her three times. And left her for dead. That is when Lynley and Havers enter the investigation. And George does her usual twists and turns with the suspects' till even the reader becomes convinced that the murderer isn't the murderer. And if you're like me ~~ if you peek at the last page, she doesn't give it away then either. This is a superbly written murder mystery ~~ George takes you down the darkside of London's citylife and she explores the dark side of the human mind as well. She takes you down for a story only to realize that you've been living with someone's struggles in remembering what had really happened in the past and how it was connected with the murder today. George once again is my favorite mystery writer. This book isn't as good as the others in the series, but it is still one of the best murder mysteries around. I just enjoy it and couldn't wait to read the ending. If you like her other books, you will like this one too. It's a fine book to add to your Elizabeth George collection.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good, but...
Review: I am a huge Elizabeth George fan, after having started with "A Great Deliverance" about 6 or more years ago. I have read all her books in order (I recommend doing this, as they build on one another.) I liked this book (and read it in a long weekend), but agree with many other reviewers that:
a) it was too long. There was alot of superflous dialog and details that should have been edited out.
b) the psychological journaling of Gideon's was very tedious. I had real trouble getting into this book (because it started with the journal), which has never happened to me before on an Eliz. George book. It took me almost 100 pages to really become interested. I found the tone of Gideon's journal to be petulant, goading, and all around annoying.
c) the ending BUGGED THE HECK outta me! I felt that the act in question was out of character and completely superflous. But, hey, I liked it, warts & all. Elizabeth George is one of the best!
Rating:
Summary: Substandard George
Review: I spent Labor Day weekend reading A Traitor to Memory and yes, it was quite a job getting through this tome. George is one of the best in the genre but Traitor went over the top with a tediously complex style and a plot that was too fragmented for resolution. The book ended - finally! - with no answers, no relief, no completeness. An arrest, yes, but no resolution. One of George's strengths has always been her exquisitly crafted characters, but this time some of them became so irritating I wanted to swat them away: Frances Webberly's self-absorbtion; Yasmin's bitter harshness to her son and Winston (but not her two-timing lover); Libby's shallowness, verbally and intellecutally, and worse, her horrific final "cure" for Gideon. Katja too - victim, perp, user, abuser, schemer, whatever she was - she never had a dimensional feel to her. Even the peripheral characters lacked appeal and at times became repulsive such as when Major Teddy wanked off during a peeping Tom episode. Pitchford's cybersex pursuits and his passivity with his bully brothers were just plain creepy and added nothing to the final score. In fact, Pitchford's entire character could have been edited out of existence and we'd never have missed him because his job as Eugenie-finder could have been given to anyone. His other jobs were too nebulous to be relevant (why did Eugenie have his address? Did he put Katja in the "club"? Who knows? Who cares?) Gideon, a violinist at a terrible standstill, was the pivotal character and was fascinating as both ingenuous adult and indulged prodigy. His journal took up too much book time, though, notwithstanding its role as the plot's primary vehicle. The dream sequences, for example, were too obvious and felt like a gratuitous dash of Freud, perhaps to lend verisimilitude to the psychiatric angle. Red pencil, please! George's themes are always rich and often involve familial relationships. Traitor does too, but it also explores innocence, the helplessness of children (healthy or not), and oddly, given the manipulations of numerous parental figures, how children ultimately define their parents. Yes, Traitor was laborious and not as satisfying as George's earlier works, but it is well worth the read. Make the time for it but don't let your usual expectations of George start too high going into this one.
Rating:
Summary: TOOO LONG !!!
Review: I went on vacation this summer to my mother's house in Florida. She had gotten two new books for me to read--"A Traitor to Memory" and P.D. James latest. I started reading Elizabeth George because she is one of my favorite writers and I usually thoroughly enjoy her books. However, this book was way too long!! The same plot, characters and all the ramifications could have been told in 500 pages and been a much better book. I guess what I don't understand is why the publishers, her editor, etc. don't/can't tell an author that they have "diarrhea" of the pen and the book will suffer for it. Because this one did--it's way too long. By the time I was finished I really didn't care who had done what--I was thoroughly bored with the whole thing and just wanted it to end. Please somebody, tell Ms. George to tell the story faster next time. I'm sorry to say that I really did not enjoy this book and hope that her next book is better.
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