{"id":627,"date":"2012-02-11T14:45:06","date_gmt":"2012-02-11T21:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=627"},"modified":"2012-02-11T14:45:06","modified_gmt":"2012-02-11T21:45:06","slug":"lynley-lies-and-secrets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=627","title":{"rendered":"Lynley, lies and secrets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elizabeth George is one of a handful of women whom, as I\u2019ve said more than once, I\u2019d like to BE. She\u2019s an American who\u2019s made a grand success of writing British police\/suspense novels. That means she gets to spend lots of time in England doing research and write it off as a business expense.<\/p>\n

As if that weren\u2019t reason enough to envy her, she\u2019s an excellent writer. Inspector Tommy Lynley and his friends and associates are such real characters that readers feel that they know them.\u00a0 Her prose is refined, precise and flowing. Her plots are intricate, reflecting her deep understanding of the complexities of life. Even British reviewers say this American portrays the Brits convincingly.<\/p>\n

Back to the part about her characters seeming real: They are so real that longtime readers develop strong likes and dislikes for the people in Lynley\u2019s life. Those feelings may be responsible for some of the controversy over the most recent novels in the series, this new one included.<\/p>\n

This is the first time I\u2019ve listened to rather than read an Elizabeth George novel.\u00a0 And that new experience, in all fairness, may have favorably colored my reaction to the book.<\/p>\n

By Linda Brinson<\/p>\n

BELIEVING THE LIE. By Elizabeth George. Read by Davina Porter. Penguin Audio. 20 CDs. 23 hours. $$44.95. Also available in hardback from Dutton. 624 pages. $28.95.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Some of Elizabeth George\u2019s longtime fans have deserted her, partly because in recent years, her books became too dark. Worst of all, she killed off Inspector Tommy Lynley\u2019s wonderful wife, Helen, along with their unborn child. Then she wrote a horrifying book about the dysfunctional family and society that produced the 12-year-old boy who shot Helen for no good reason. And she wrote about Lynley\u2019s grief, and his efforts to get a grip on his life, including his slide into a risky affair.<\/p>\n

The reasons that some fans have deserted George are closely akin to the reasons some longtime followers stick with her, trying each new book: They care about the characters, they really want to know what happens to them, and they know George is capable of writing great fiction.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve stuck with her, but I\u2019ll have to admit that I might have felt a little trepidation about tackling the 624 pages of the print edition of this new novel. I had no hesitation, however, about sliding the first CD into my car\u2019s player, and even though the audio version lasts a whopping 23 hours, I was sad when it ended and I had to withdraw from Lynley\u2019s world until George gives us her next book. This novel is not as dark as its recent predecessors.<\/p>\n

Believing the Lie<\/em> is a complex book with many subplots involving Lynley, his sidekick Barbara Havers, her neighbors, Lynley\u2019s love interest, and his friends Simon and Deborah St. James. Not to mention Zed Benjamin, a gawky poet who\u2019s trying to make it as a reporter for one of London\u2019s most notorious tabloids. And all those stories and problems are in play before Lynley even gets involved with what turns out to be an extremely murky situation.<\/p>\n

Lynley is sent undercover to Cumbria to investigate the death of Ian Cresswell, a key executive in a lucrative firm that makes plumbing supplies. Cresswell\u2019s uncle, Bernard Fairclough, the husband of the company\u2019s owner, asks for the investigation through the old-boy network.<\/p>\n

Lynley is mystified from the beginning, because the death has been ruled accidental, and most signs suggest the ruling was correct. Why would Fairclough want to look further? If anyone had a motive to murder Ian Cresswell, that person is probably very closely related to Fairclough.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, there are plenty of motives. There also, Lynley soon begins to realize, are many secrets in the extended Fairclough family. And a murder investigation, even an off-the-record one, has a way of unearthing dangerous secrets that may have nothing to do with the murder.<\/p>\n

Hampered by working undercover, Lynley calls on his old friends Simon and Deborah St. James to come to Cumbria and help. He also enlists Havers back in London, even though doing so risks the ire of their boss \u2013 the woman Lynley has been seeing. The \u201cguv\u201d is already angry because she hasn\u2019t been told where the higher-ups have sent Lynley and what he\u2019s doing there.<\/p>\n

What he\u2019s doing is trying to make sense of what he\u2019s discovering about the Faircloughs and how it might relate to Cresswell\u2019s death. Cresswell, Fairclough\u2019s nephew, left an ex-wife who is extremely bitter because he left her for a man; the other man, who inherits the farm where they\u2019d been living; and two damaged children, one of them a self-destructive adolescent boy. Fairclough\u2019s adult son, Nicholas, is a recovering drug addict with a beautiful, mysterious wife. Fairclough also has two grown daughters, one of whom seems to have a suspicious hold over her parents.<\/p>\n

All these people have their stories, their secrets. Davina Porter\u2019s excellent reading deserves a great deal of credit for helping the listener maintain a clear sense of all the characters and developments, as the novel switches among the various dramas.<\/p>\n

In the end, this book is less a conventional mystery or suspense story than an examination of human nature, the interworkings of families, and the damage that can be done by festering secrets.<\/p>\n

Some things work out well among these many related stories, and some not so well. There is much to be resolved among Lynley\u2019s circle of friends. One very good thing is that Lynley seems to be coming to terms with Helen\u2019s death. He appears ready to move on with his own life in, I hope, future novels.<\/p>\n

Readers who are unfamiliar with this series should not start with this or other recent novels. It\u2019s better to meet and start to care for Lynley and company in George\u2019s earlier books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elizabeth George is one of a handful of women whom, as I\u2019ve said more than once, I\u2019d like to BE. She\u2019s an American who\u2019s made a grand success of writing British police\/suspense novels. That means she gets to spend lots of time in England doing research and write it off as a business expense. As […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[201,199,200],"class_list":["post-627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thriller-suspense","tag-british-police-novels","tag-elizabeth-george","tag-inspector-lynley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":629,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions\/629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}