In the Presence of The Enemy is another Havers/Linley mystery by Elizabeth George.

I'm a pretty big fan of George's novels.  Her characters are extremely well-developed to the point that I feel I know them.  Mostly they revolve around Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley and his partner, Sergeant Barbara Havers.  Lynley is a titled aristocrat and Havers is part of the working class.  Though they occupy two completely different worlds, their partnership is one of mutual respect and love.  Together they solve crimes, and help keep the London streets safe.

In this book, a child has been kidnapped.  But not just any child - she's the daughter of a high-ranking, influential member of Parliament.  And her father is the editor of a tabloid newspaper.  The child resulted from a week-long tryst a decade before, and her paternity has been a closely guarded secret all this time.  Should it be made known, the mother's political career would take a tumble.

But the kidnapper makes his desire clear - he wants the child's paternity announced - on page one of the tabloid.  The father is perfectly willing to do so.  The mother hesitates.  In fact, she's convinced the father, himself, is behind the kidnapping, pulling off this hoax in order to drum up circulation for his rag.  Further, the mother is so convinced that this is a hoax that she refuses to call in the authorities. 

In fact, Lynley and Havers enter the story late in the game, only after the plot has thickened, and another child goes missing.

It's quite an interesting game of cat and mouse as the duo follow clue after clue, to figure out who's behind the kidnappings, and what the ultimate motivation is.  George does a great job of handing us clues slowly, leading us down a path, only to switch things up just when we're pretty sure we know what's happening.  This book definitely held my interest and kept me turning those pages. 

As far as the ending goes - I'll just say that it was quite good.  A very pleasant surprise, actually.  It's great when you can say that a book was anything but predictable, and that is definitely true for this one. 

My only real complaint has to do with the girl's mother.  She is portrayed as an unbelievably cold person, a mother who would sooner sacrifice her child's safety than harm her career.  Further, she insists she's right about the father's involvement without one shred of evidence!  She refuses to entertain any other possibilities, nor does she for one minute consider giving in to the kidnapper's demands.  Not even when it's quite clear that the child will suffer enormously if the mother doesn't give in.  I just can not imagine a mother being that cold. 

If I have any other complaints, they have to do with a couple of subplots that were unnecessary, and that dragged the book in places. One has to do with Lynley's fiancée, Helen.  She has appeared in several George books, and in this case she's wrestling with a few demons of her own.  There's another subplot involving the forensic scientist Simon and his wife Deborah.  Neither plot was particularly interesting, nor did they do very much to further the development of the characters.  The plots were simply fillers in a book that was already quite long.

Despite these few flaws, I found this book to be a real page-turner, another exciting George mystery.

Also by Elizabeth George:
Deception on His Mind
Well Schooled in Murder

Recommended: Yes