Rating: 
Summary: A good read for a rainy night!
Review: The characters are charming (or quirky) and the plot as twisted as a hangman's noose. Her books are fun and this one is no exception. I curled up in front of a fire in early spring and read it at one sitting!
Rating: 
Summary: A Bit More Puzzling
Review: The mystery in this book was a bit more complex than that in George's first book in this series: the solution was not as apparent. Unfortunately, there were so many secondary characters that it was hard to keep them straight. It was obvious that these characters were there to act as "red herrings".I also thought that the coincidence of Lady Helen being on the scene of a murder, and intimately involved, was a bit of a stretch, but was able to accept it with just a grain of salt. George did a fairly good job of giving us more insight into the main characters (Lynley, Havers, Helen, and Deborah) and fleshed out their backgrounds quite well. I thought that the last third of the book was far too dragged out...I found myself skimming a lot.
Rating:
Summary: A Bit More Puzzling
Review: The mystery in this book was a bit more complex than that in George's first book in this series: the solution was not as apparent. Unfortunately, there were so many secondary characters that it was hard to keep them straight. It was obvious that these characters were there to act as "red herrings". I also thought that the coincidence of Lady Helen being on the scene of a murder, and intimately involved, was a bit of a stretch, but was able to accept it with just a grain of salt. George did a fairly good job of giving us more insight into the main characters (Lynley, Havers, Helen, and Deborah) and fleshed out their backgrounds quite well. I thought that the last third of the book was far too dragged out...I found myself skimming a lot.
Rating:
Summary: Second Installment in Lynley-Havers Series is Solid
Review: The second installment in Elizabeth George's successful Lynley-Havers mystery series is a solid successor to the first book, A Great Deliverance. In this story, the melding of the cozy, police procedural, and hard-boiled genres that was balanced so well in the first book leans a little more to the cozy side of things, with a trip to Scotland to investigate a murder on an ancient Scottish estate (turned up-scale bed and breakfast), which evolves into a classic locked-room mystery with a cast of illustrious and spoiled suspects. The emphasis is a bit more on Lynley than Havers in this story, which is expected since he promotes more of the cozy feel, while Havers promotes more of the hard-boiled feel. However, Havers fans should not despair -- her dark side is still there, althouth a bit tempered. All in all, this mystery advances the ongoing tale of these two seemingly ill-matched yet complementary partners, by exploring Lynley's "dark side", fleshing him out a bit more than in the first book.
Rating: 
Summary: Be prepared to be hooked!
Review: This is only the second Elizabeth George novel I have read, but I plan to read them all as soon as I can. She has a gift for making even the most minor characters appear multi-dimensional and interesting. You never feel that a character exists solely as a plot device. I found myself caring about every character, even the killer! Havers, Lynley, Clyde and St. James are worthy returning characters. Their relationships are complex and undoubtedly have a rich history and a promising future. I can't wait to see what develops between all of them in the next book. Payment in Blood will keep you engrossed (and guessing) until the very end.
Rating:
Summary: A little romance...
Review: This is the second of the George books I've read (and the second she wrote), and I was slightly -- but only slightly -- disappointed. She's a terrific writer with a knack for ingenious plotting, and I would recommend her to anyone who is a serious reader of the genre. That said, I did guess the culprit, and I was a touch put off by the romance novel elements (Will Lynley find true love and happiness etc.). Still, even if Lynley's love life continues to be a significant aspect of the series (and I hope it won't be as much), that won't keep me from reading on. I'm hooked. Check George out; you won't be sorry.
Rating:
Summary: The mysteries of the human heart
Review: This novel is an interesting mixture of a big-country-house mystery in the tradition of Agatha Christie and a much deeper study of the way that humans can fundamentally hurt and deceive themselves. I really loved A Suitable Vengeance, the first novel in this series. This one took me a little longer to get into, but I found it equally interesting and compelling, once it got started. Thomas Lynley has to confront his feelings for Lady Helen Clyde, whose lover may (or may not) be implicated in a murder. Lynley is, at first, remarkably blind to his own feelings, and then lets jealously completely overtake himself and his judgement. He also is blind to the ways that Scotland Yard CID is manipulating him, taking advantage of his class assumptions and loyalties. Barabara Havers, with her own set of class assumptions and much more stunted interpersonal relations, has to confront her loyalties to Lynley and to her career, and is the character who probably grows the most in this book. There are quite a few "red herrings" here, from a traditional mystery perspective. I am usually les interested in figuring out mystery stories than I am in the character development along the way, but I will say that I figured out the villain in this one!
Rating:
Summary: The mysteries of the human heart
Review: This novel is an interesting mixture of a big-country-house mystery in the tradition of Agatha Christie and a much deeper study of the way that humans can fundamentally hurt and deceive themselves. I really loved A Suitable Vengeance, the first novel in this series. This one took me a little longer to get into, but I found it equally interesting and compelling, once it got started. Thomas Lynley has to confront his feelings for Lady Helen Clyde, whose lover may (or may not) be implicated in a murder. Lynley is, at first, remarkably blind to his own feelings, and then lets jealously completely overtake himself and his judgement. He also is blind to the ways that Scotland Yard CID is manipulating him, taking advantage of his class assumptions and loyalties. Barabara Havers, with her own set of class assumptions and much more stunted interpersonal relations, has to confront her loyalties to Lynley and to her career, and is the character who probably grows the most in this book. There are quite a few "red herrings" here, from a traditional mystery perspective. I am usually les interested in figuring out mystery stories than I am in the character development along the way, but I will say that I figured out the villain in this one!
Rating:
Summary: E. George reminds of PD James + Christie, but slower tale!
Review: We recently tried our first mystery by California teacher/writer Elizabeth George. Apparently all her novels are set in England, so we guess she must have lived or visited there extensively as one would swear the writing is classic Brit. Indeed, much of the wordcraft reminded us of PD James, as did her heroes Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley with sidekick Barbara Havers, reminiscent of James' Adam Dalgliesh with sidekick Kate Miskin. However, unlike the evocative scene setting, almost literary, prose of James, George's tendency to provide very full descriptions of the mundane seemed to drag out each chapter; and it takes half the book before things get more interesting.
Like many of Agatha Christie's stories, a murder at an English B & B during the first few pages set the stage for a game of "Clue" in which virtually every temporary resident of the inn was a suspect, especially since they were all there together as part of reviewing a playwright's (the victim) new script for an upcoming production. That most everybody there had a motive created some suspense, but the killing of a worker at the inn on the second day was a puzzling addition to the plot that never really added much to the story. By the last third of the book, when the action finally moved away from the inn, things heated up as Lynley and his colleagues close in on the motives and eventual killer. Some stuff from 25 years in the past created a somewhat interesting sub-plot as did Lynley's prior romantic involvement with one of the suspects, who is now dating yet another suspect.
While we found the book entertaining, it seemed overly long. George could take a lesson from Christie's economy of words - this tale in one hundred pages less would have moved along at a satisfying pace without detracting an iota from the story line. We're told George's newer material (this is just her second novel, from 1989) is livelier and more suspenseful; we shall see.
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