Usually, I don't read thrillers, staying mostly on a comfortable track between science fiction and suchlike. After being recommended this series several times by various people, I finally settled down into giving it a good read -- but my big mistake was to sit and not read them in order. I'm trying to fix that situation this summer.

This was Elizabeth George's first novel, and it's a heady, plot thick book with plenty of characters, red herrings, and a doozy of a ghost story to keep you awake at nights. Unfortunately, it's also a first novel -- sequences leap about wildly or end suddenly, and throughout I kept fighting down the feeling that I was missing something. The other bad point was that there were simply too many plotlines to follow, I could easily count six of them, and I'm certain I missed a few.

Despite all that, it's still a cracking good novel. Which speaks highly of George's talents. Starting with a murder -- a farmer is found decapitated in the Yorkshire Dales -- we get the introduction of Inspector Thomas Lynley and Sargent Barbara Havers. And at first, the sparks are flying -- neither of them think much of the other. Lynley isn't also Apollo-beautiful, he's also a titled aristocrat, wealthy, living a life of luxury with a home in Belgravia, the lovely Lady Helen as his mistress, and valet included. He's also has got a slightly unsavory reputation, at least in Haver's eyes -- his amourous affairs among the female members of Scotland Yard is well known.

And Havers? Well, she's not a beauty, short, plain, can't dress to well, and her home life is a horror to put it politely. She's also got one hell of an attitude towards life and others, and she's managed to rub other in the wrong way that she's on the brink of being demoted and out of the Yard entirely. Not exactly an auspicious begining.

And the case of the murdered William Teys is fraught with plenty of tension besides Lynley and Havers' troubles with each other. There's also the little matter of Lynley's ex-love getting married at the begining of the book -- to none other than to Simon St. James, a friend of Lynley's who's been crippled in an accident that happened when Lynley was driving and drinking. And to make matters even worse, they just happen to be honeymooning in the same village where the murder occured.

I didn't say that this was easy read...

Along the way we get several obligatory characters: a couple of sexy barmaids, a runaway wife, a Ripper let loose in London, the local artist, mental asylums and Ugly Americans. There's also too many coincidences in this one, enough to where it stretched credibility and bogged down the novel.

Of course, the real story here isn't the murder -- it's the drama unfolding between the two leads, and for once, the author didn't let it slide into a case of mutual attraction. She thinks he's a fop and snob, and he thinks she's a basket case and dump. Still both of them manage to work together, and if the characters are a little too perfect, George makes that up with a plot that's heavy on suspense. Together the two detectives peel away the layers of secrets of the town of Keldale and uncover an extremely tragic story of patricide, hypocrisy and horror.

Four stars overall; the novel picked up several awards for best first novel, including the Egdar and the Agatha. The sequel is Well Schooled in Murder. For those of you who are interested, the BBC has turned this one into a series, which will be aired on PBS later on this summer.

Recommended.

The Inspector Lynley novels:
A Great Deliverance -- You are here
Payment in Blood
A Suitable Vengeance
Well-Schooled in Murder
For the Sake of Elena
Missing Joseph
Playing for the Ashes
In the Presence of the Enemy
Deception on His Mind
In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner
A Place of Hiding
A Traitor to Memory
With No One As Witness
What Came Before He Shot Her
Careless in Red
This Body of Death
Believing the Lie

For an overview of the entire series, go here.

Recommended: Yes