A Place of Hiding
by Elizabeth George
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Book Summary Information
Author: Elizabeth GeorgeEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-08-03
ISBN: 0553582372
Number of pages: 800
Publisher: Bantam
Book Reviews of A Place of Hiding
Book Review: Finally, it's over
Summary: 3 Stars
I just finished working my way through the entire Lynley series, up to the latest, over the course of about a year, with other books interspersed. My opinion was formed after about three books, and each of the others simply provided more support. Elizabeth George is like that wonderful aunt who makes wonderful cookies but brings them over, in bushels, every day, every week, two bushels on holidays. Halfway through each book, I'm muttering through tight lips, "Will you PLEASE just get on with it?"
The last five or six 800-page novels cover a single chronological year. One actually begins before the previous ends! That in itself should give you pause. One of the novels is 1002 pages long, and that is, blast it, TOO MANY COOKIES!
With that off my chest, yes, George is one of the best going, once you learn to read at a glancing jog. Her characters are human and well-drawn. In A Place of Hiding, it's true we care less and less about the victim as the story progresses, but it is also true that the who of the murder is a complete surprise and yet painfully satisfying, folding us back to the first few, probably forgotten pages of the story. As she often does, George layers effective complexity on her characters. One of the most sympathetic commits a murder far less shocking than it probably should be; one of the least sympathetic has a moment when we are touched, if only briefly, with a sense of the tragedy that turned him from a merely unexceptional person to someone we loathe.
But the endless whinging over Deb and Simon, Helen and Lynley, Tommie and Deborah, even, in one book, Helen and Simon, is unendurable. I am fed up with their laocaonic (whatever) wrestling with their marriages. I am fed up with Deb's "What did you say?" chips on shoulders regarding her husband's scarcely discernible sexism and his endless "My love, what I meant was" responses. Tommie's doubts bore me and Helen is less cute than anyone realizes. I know more about Tommie than I ever would have wanted to, and once I got to know Helen after reading With No One as Witness, I did not find her fate especially hard to bear. It's like having nice neighbors who insist on discussing their marriage with you.
What a maddening writer. Her books are wonderful, page for page, plot for plot. But there is not a page on one of them that I won't wager I could cut by 20% without anyone noticing. If I'm wrong, I'll... eat a cookie.
Summary of A Place of Hiding
An isolated beach on the island of Guernsey in the English Channel is the scene of the murder of Guy Brouard, one of Guernsey?s wealthiest inhabitants and its main benefactor. Forced as a child to flee the Nazis in Paris, Brouard was engaged in his latest project when he died: a museum in honor of those who resisted the German occupation of the island during World War II.It is from this period of time that his murderer may well have come. But there are others on Guernsey with reason to want Guy Brouard dead: his wives, his business associates, his current mistress, the underprivileged teenagers he mentored?any of whom might have harbored a secret motive for murder. As family and friends gather for the reading of the will, Deborah and Simon St. James find that seemingly everyone on the history-haunted island has something to hide. And behind all the lies and alibis, a killer is lurking. In order to bring this person to justice, the St. James must delve into Guernsey?s dark history?both past and present?and into the troubled psyche of someone who may have exacted retribution for the most unspeakable crime of all.
In A Place of Hiding, bestselling novelist Elizabeth George marks new territory in the darker landscapes of human relationships. She tells a gripping, suspenseful story of betrayal and devotion, war and remembrance, love and loss...and the higher truths to which we must all ultimately answer.
From the Hardcover edition.
In this latest from bestseller Elizabeth George, China River, recuperating from a failed love affair, agrees to accompany her ne'er-do-well brother Cherokee to the Channel Islands to hand-deliver a set of architectural drawings to an expatriate millionaire whose plans to fund a museum commemorating the war-time exploits of his Guernsey neighbors comes a cropper after he's found dead under suspicious circumstances. George spins an intricate and lively plot that spotlights the efforts of series regulars Deborah and Simon St. John to help Deborah's old friends free themselves; in the process, she introduces a fascinating cast of secondary characters, many of whom had much more obvious motives to wish Guy Brouard dead than the California siblings who seem tailor-made for a frame-up. A fine addition to George's ouevre, this thirteenth outing in her popular series will delight her fans. --Jane Adams
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