Elizabeth George's novels featuring Inspector Lynley are well-paced, exciting and beautifully structured. They are classic English detective novels, mixing an intriguing crime to solve and a complex social background for all the main characters. It's only a few details - the exaggerated social structure and the intervention all over the country of Scotland Yard that is more like the 1930s than the present day, occasional misuse of words and most glaringly when a small child knows all the US states that you realise that George is not English but American. George's view from the outside gives her an extra freshness, and apart from these few details her research is immaculate, with perfect locations and feel. Superb books, perhaps a little on the long side for me, but this simply follows the trend in publishing. If you like English detective fiction, you'll love Elizabeth George.

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A Great Deliverance (1989).
George's first book. No details available at this time.

Payment in Blood (1990) -
George's strongest link back to the 30s roots of her characters, set in a Scottish mansion at the reading of an avant-garde play. Before the evening is over the playwright is brutally murdered, and Inspector Lynley's beloved Lady Helen is one of the suspects. As in A Suitable Vengeance, as much about Lynley's feelings and personal life as the murder - in fact he's dangerously close to the case. As usual with George, the trail of clues and detection is masterly done.

Well-Schooled in Murder (1991) -
A murdered schoolboy attracts attention to both the village where it is found and the public school he was missing from. Full of the tensions of a closed and uncomfortable society, the portrayal of the public school is particularly impressive for the remote Ms George. As usual Sergeant Havers problems with her senile mother and Inspector Lynley's with his tortured love life intrude into the story but don't obscure it.

A Suitable Vengeance (1992) -
All good detectives have to have the occasional problem on their doorstep, and this one is strongly tied in with the noble Inspector Lynley (he's not only a policeman, he's 8th Earl of Asherton) and his ancestral home. Lynley goes in for a tragic love life, and you just know that when he brings the girl he wants to marry home things are not going to go well. A good mix of Cornwall and London to give the usual George atmosphere.

For the Sake of Elena (1992) -
One of George's finest. The setting in Cambridge University (one up on Morse) is only slightly caricatured, and the characters involved in the murder as usual are beautifully drawn (as opposed to the strangely Dorothy L. Sayers feel of the police and their social circles). George goes for the fictional college approach, which is almost inevitable, but a shame. Still, the atmosphere's great and the detection, as usual, first class.

In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (1999) -
Elizabeth George captures again with effortless ease a very British environment and circumstance - in this case a prehistoric stone circle in Derbyshire. Once more the noble Inspector Thomas Lynley and his decidely working class sergeant Barbara Havers are on the case - except poor old Havers is in even more of a mess than usual. She seems to have decided to try to shoot her boss.    New 17 September 1999

Missing Joseph (1994) -
Yet again Lynley's friends and family turn up in the case. This time it's the secondary characters of Deborah St. James and her crippled pathologist husband Simon. Deborah, suffering in her personal life like most George principal characters, gets solace from a vicar she bumps into in the National Gallery. When later he is found dead, apparently from accidental poisoning, Deborah is determined to get to the bottom of it, bringing in Lynley et al. It's a complex mystery, with parental love at it's heart, from Deborah's sorrow to the crime itself.

Playing for the Ashes (1995) -
When England's top batsman is discovered dead in a burned-out cottage, there is little doubt that there's foul play afoot. There are plenty of people with motives to see him dead, and most could have done it. George brings two distinct strands of the murder and a girl in distress together beautifully, and once again takes on a very English theme with aplomb.

Deception on his Mind (1998) -
Barbara Havers, Lynley's gritty sergeant comes into her own when Lynley is off on honeymoon. Set to a decaying Essex town, she has to deal with working without the big L, and the delicacies of a murder in the Asian community. As usual, George manages to capture a very British environment well.

Deception on his Mind (1997)

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