Not quite as dazzling as its predecessor (A Great Deliverance, 1988) but still complex, rich, and accomplished enough to elbow the author between P.D. James and Ruth Rendell to form the new triumvirate of English psychological suspense. Here, Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley, his pugnacious, definitely non-U partner Sergeant Barbara Havers, and Lynley's good friend forensic scientist Simon Allcourt-St. James are (curiously) sent to Scotland (beyond their jurisdiction) to uncover (cover up?) the murder of author Joy Sinclair—who was snowbound at an isolated estate with her play's director, producer, stars (including her sister), a drama critic, the widowed lady of the manor (the producer's sister), and the help (young Gowan is soon scalded and stabbed too). While Lynley—in a jealous pique—fixes blame on the director (he and Lynley love the same woman), St. James and Havers focus on the author's newly revised work: Could the murder motive connect to it and to the unkempt family grave dating back to 1963 (and MI5 concerns)? Following other clues (and bolstering his suspicions), Lynley arrives in Porthill Green and attempts to link up the revised work (which has been confiscated by. . .?) with the 1973 suicide/murder of Hannah Darrow—back then, Mrs. Darrow was fatally familiar with one lackluster member of the Scottish theatrical entourage who played her town in stock. The resolution comes at the expense of several family secrets, one spy scandal, Lynley's personal happiness and, assuredly, a less-than-finest hour for the Yard's integrity. Clearly in the process of developing and maturing her permanent cast (Lynley; Havers; St. James; his wife Deborah; his associate, and Lynley's unconsummated love—Lady Helen), George demonstrates an unusual proficiency for dealing with lots of characters without stooping to cliches. Equally deft: the interweaving here of many disparate storylines; a Christie-crisp placement of clues; and her portrayal of the down side of love and responsibility. A major talent likely to influence the direction of the crime novel for years to come.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1989
ISBN: 0553384805
Page Count: 413
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1989
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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