In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner: 10 (Inspector Lynley) - Softcover

George, Elizabeth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 055338600X ISBN 13: 9780553386004

Publisher: Bantam, 2009

Synopsis

Calder Moor is a wild and deadly place: many have been trapped in the myriad limestone caves, lost in collapsed copper mines, injured on perilous ridges. But when two bodies are discovered in the shadow of the ancient circle of stones known as Nine Sisters Henge, it is clearly not a case for Mountain Rescue. The corpses are those of a young man and woman. Each met death in a different fashion. Each died violently. To Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley, this grisly crime promises to be one of the toughest of his career. For the unfortunate Nicola Maiden was the daughter of a former officer in an elite undercover unit, a man Lynley once regarded as a mentor. Now, as Lynley struggles to find out if Nicola's killer was an enemy of her father's or one she earned herself, Barbara Havers, his longtime partner, crisscrosses London seeking information on the second victim. Yet the more dark secrets Lynley and Havers uncover, the more they learn that neither the victims nor the suspects are who they appear to be...that human relationships are often murderous...and that the blood that binds can also kill.

About this title

Review:

Award winning novelist Elizabeth George (A Great Deliverance, Well-Schooled in Murder) returns with In Pursuit of a Proper Sinner, her 10th instalment in the Lynley-Havers series. Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley has his work cut out for him: two mutilated corpses are found in a prehistoric stone circle in Derbyshire. One is the daughter of Lynley's former mentor Andy Maiden.

What's more, the Inspector's partner Barbara Havers has been suspended and is facing criminal charges of assault and attempted murder. Was Havers really saving a drowning child or was she disobeying orders? Why then did she fire a rifle at the Detective Chief Inspector and how could Lynley ethically justify it? As he grapples with the ramifications of his partner's radical insubordination, the case in Derbyshire grows in daunting complexity.

Once again, Elizabeth George delivers an intricately woven plot which efficiently navigates the reader through the book's 566 pages. Along the way, readers will be introduced to a delightful cast of supporting characters, from the dowdy Phoebe who finds the first gory cadaver to the stately Andy Maiden: "His face was drawn with exhaustion, and his growth of peppery whiskers fanned out from his moustache and shadowed his cheeks". And, of course, fans will get an eyeful of George's trademark; her vivid descriptions of death: "At her feet, a young man lay curled like a foetus, dressed head-to-toe in nothing but black, with that same colour puckering burnt flesh from eye to jaw on one side of his face". --Rebekah Warren

Review:

"Elizabeth George reigns as queen of the mystery genre. The Lynley books constitute the smartest, most gratifyingly complex and impassioned mystery series now being published."--Entertainment Weekly

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 055338600X
• ISBN 13: 9780553386004
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 608