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Mystery, They Wrote

I remember reading Elizabeth George’s first book, A Great Deliverance, as if it were yesterday. It wasn’t of course; it was almost twenty years ago. But I remember it clearly. It was a fantastic British police procedural filled with characters that made my heart ache. Scotland Yard Inspector, Thomas Lynley, the eighth Earl of Asherton was the privileged, tortured protagonist whose sense of guilt drove virtually everything he did. His partner was his polar opposite, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, a common street officer, newly promoted to CID, who had begrudgingly worked extra hard for every achievement. Simon Allcourt St. James, a friend of Lynley’s and an independent forensic scientist, St. James’ wife Deborah, and Lady Helen Clyde rounded out the cast of recurring characters.

And then the story…well, there was that incredible story. Borrowing from her studies in counseling/psychology, George spun almost the perfect tale. I remember reading the last few chapters two or three times before I had convinced myself that what seemed so totally implausible was, in fact, the truth. And of course, it was all there, carefully laid out by a writer that understood not only the craft of writing, but also the art.

I’ve read almost every one of George’s books since then. The series is now 14 books (soon to be 15) long. They are thick, meaty books, all set in England and all featuring the same core characters, plus a few extras added as the series progressed. What makes these books so different from other police procedurals is a combination of intricate plotting, picture-perfect settings and troubled, conflicted characters who over the course of the series you know like members of an extended family. You may not like them all the time, they may make poor decisions and certainly they suffer their share of trials and tribulations, but they always seem to come out OK in the end. A bit battered and bruised and sometimes disillusioned, but safe.

That was until 2005, when George took a huge risk with With No One as Witness. Now, I’ve always admired risk-takers. Perhaps because I’d like to be one, but there’s all that…well, risk. Yes, Elizabeth George did the unimaginable – she killed off one of her main characters. I kid you not! I was speechless. I called my friend Chris and asked if she had read the book yet…No. I told her she must – NOW! “And call me when you’re done.” Days went by; I really needed to talk to someone about this. I started calling other friends, contributors to Mystery News, strange names from the phone book…

It took me a bit of time to sort out my feelings about this tragic turn of events. In the end, I decided I admired George’s willingness to write those lines on the page. Many others did not. She got hate mail; people threatened to never read her books again; another accused her of having betrayed her readers; rumors spread that this was the end of the series. But in my mind Elizabeth George was just doing what she does so well – she made us care. Risky, yes.

In an article on her website (www.elizabethgeorgeonline.com), George addresses the issue with her readers:

“When a writer writes, as John Steinbeck put it so eloquently, he seeks to form a trinity, and this trinity exists only when the work, the writer, and the reader are joined together…My purpose in this was to have the reader feel…Had the reader completed the novel, tossed it to one side, yawned, and walked into the kitchen for a beer and a bologna sandwich, the novel would have failed in its purpose. There would have been no trinity. But the reader didn’t do that. The reader cared. The reader wept. The reader raged. These reactions spoke to the fact that the novel succeeded in doing what novels have always been intended to do.”

George writes often about her writing process, which includes an incredibly detailed character analysis of each character. She knows her characters inside out – how they will react in times of stress and how they will recover from tragic events. Just how this occurs, we’ll find out when Elizabeth George’s new book is published in May. Careless in Red finds Lynley hiking the cliff-side trails of the Cornish coast. On a lonely stretch of coastline, he discovers the body of a young man…I, for one, can hardly wait.

If you’ve never read this series, start at the beginning with A Great Deliverance. It will rock your world and I bet you’ll be wondering what happens to these characters too.

Enjoy the mystery!

Books by Elizabeth George:
A Great Deliverance (1988)
Payment in Blood (1989)
Well-Schooled in Murder (1990)
A Suitable Vengeance (1991)
For the Sake of Elena (1992)
Missing Joseph (1993)
Playing For the Ashes (1994)
In the Presence of the Enemy (1996)
Deception on His Mind (1997) features Barbara Havers
In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (1999)
A Traitor to Memory (2001)
A Place of Hiding (2003) features St. James and his wife, Deborah
With No One as Witness (2005)
What Came Before He Shot Her (2006) features the killer in the previous book, not the usual cast of characters – don’t read this out of order.
Careless in Red (2008)
And don’t miss George’s book on writing, one of the best I’ve read: Write Away: One Novelist’s Approach to the Novel (2004).