The Nature of Things

Payment In Blood by Elizabeth  George My rating: 4 of 5 stars I recently read the first book in this series, A Great Deliverance , and decided to push on with the second one because I was curious to see how the characters developed. The two main characters, Inspector Lynley and Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, are opposites in many ways - Lynley, the wealthy aristocrat, and Havers, the working class woman who has had to struggle for everything she has and who has a chip on her shoulder for the privileged aristocracy. One thing they share is a commitment to the truth and to solving crime. They are an interesting contrast. I empathize a great deal with Havers's situation, but I can tolerate Lynley, too, and I enjoy the interaction and the grudging respect that have been forged between the two. This time, the two detectives are dispatched to Scotland to investigate a murder, even though New Scotland Yard really has no legal standing there. The reason for the assignment becomes clea...

A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth  George My rating: 4 of 5 stars As an avid reader of mystery series, why have I never picked up one of Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley books? After all, she's one of the most successful mystery writers now on the scene. I've finally remedied my oversight by reading the first book in the series and the writer's first novel, A Great Deliverance . I won't wait so long to peruse the second book in the series, because this was a terrific read. Here are a few of the things that I liked about the book: The setting. Yorkshire, with its gray, windy moors and small, insular villages is a dark and mysterious place all on its own. Here, George takes us to the little village of Keldale where a local respected farmer has been found decapitated in his barn, his dead body slumped over the also dead body of his old dog whose throat had been slit. Most shockingly, his daughter is seated on an upturned bucket nearby with an axe on her lap. She sa...