Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley)
by Elizabeth George
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Book Reviews of Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley)
Book Review: George Still A Master of the Mystery Genre--a Reeling Lynley Returns
Summary: 5 Stars
Elizabeth George ignited a firestorm two books prior to this one by having Inspector Lynley's pregnant wife Helen killed by a young murderer who was out to prove himself to his local gang. This firestorm took place because readers were not used to having a writer who advances each novel as if it were real life. Good things and bad things happen to the continuing characters, Lynley and Havers, and they do not march off into a happy ever after sunset. It took an extraordinary amount of guts for an author to do this and I applaud George for doing so. I spent last summer out by the pool and read every single Lynley and Havers mystery. These are English mysteries written by an American and you would never suspect it.
Lynley, who is the Earl in Cornwall, has been walking the Cornish coast for 43 days looking and behaving like a homeless mad man. Considering that he has lost the entire center of his life, that isn't far from the truth. He literally stumbles across a murder victim on this trek and squarely lands himself into a murder investigation. At first he seems so suspicious that he is taken as the suspect, not a stellar detective from Scotland Yard much less the most important man in the area as its Peer. While the police investigate him, he is forced to clean up, send for money, check into an Inn, get new clothes and, in short, resort to behaving like his usual blue blooded, high handed self.
Wherever Lynley is, Havers cannot be far behind. Eager to get Lynley back, Scotland Yard sends her on special assignment to join him in Cornwall.
These mysteries abound in layers, facets, characters, texture and complexity. This one is no exception. The dead young man is Santo Kerne. His family is opening an elaborate resort in the area. Each member of this family is a unique character and a defining aspect of the family is the father's obsession with the mother. This obsession with her goes back for years and the father is literally willing to do anything to keep her. Both the mother and the son are seen wearing red and it takes awhile to figure out who has been "careless in red". This family is at the core of the mystery but both the mystery and the family are so much more complex than it appears at first.
Reading George's mysteries is similar to peeling a huge onion. They are not for a reader who wants a quick, light read. Usually the lives which are uncovered are tragic. It is rare to see anyone end happily and, if they do, George is just as likely to pull the rug out from under them as she did to Lynley with Helen's murder.
Usually I give up on series books because the characters get tedious. However, no one could accuse George of getting tedious. Controversial is more the defining word for her.
I have also watched the Lynley mysteries on PBS. I've enjoyed them but the filmed versions are way too short for these deeply layered novels. It would have been better to film each novel as a miniseries. The scripts considerably rewrote and truncated George's books and this was not a good thing. However, the perfect actors were picked to play Lynley and Havers.
Book Review: Careless in Red is the newest Thomas Lynley murder mystery by Elizabeth George
Summary: 3 Stars
Thomas Lynley has walked 43 days through the rugged seascaped rocky soil of southwest England. He does so because he is mournng the murder of his wife Helen and their unborn son who were shot dead by a 12 year old gunman. While walking he discovers the body of a rock climber who has fallen to his death due to someone cutting his security ropes. The murder of young Santo Kerne, the son of hotel owners in Cornmwall, is the case which is minutely dissected in typical Elizabeth George style.
Lynley joins forces with the fetching vet Daidre Traherne in seeking to ferret out the murderer. Thus begins another 700 page novel by the prolific and verbose Elizabeth George.
George is a writer with so many ideas and plots simmering in her fertile mind that she has trouble focusing on the murder case itself! for instance she:
details the domestic life of detective Barbara Hanaford, her estranged husband Ray and their teenager son Pete. Interesting but vital to the case being investigated?
tells the story of a young girl named Tammy who wants to be a nun.
Recounts the sexual exploits of Mrs. Dellen Kerne son of the murdered lad and her sad marriage to Ben.
examines the loves of a nymphomaniacal Greek woman.
Explores the lives of two siblings Caden and Madlyn (who was pregant by the murder victim)
George details the love affair of young Kerra Kerne and Alex Priest.
It is true that all of these characters are suspects in the case but this author goes on and on and on in telling us in detail about their lives. Is this really necessary? Authors like Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers wrote classic mystery fiction in much shorter novels that George prefers penning.
There is nary a gunshot or tense scene in the novel. George prefers dialogue and characters revealing themselves through their words. Many of the characters have Cornish names hard to remember for the reader.It becomes tedious following the doings of such a large cast of characters in a book designed as escapist entertainment and not War and Peace! The murky ending revealing the killer is anticlimatic. We are stumbling to the last page by the time this behemoth of a book is put back on the shelf along with all the other George books we have perused. The novel has little humor and the skies of Cornwall are dark and forbidding.
I like Elizabeth George but this one was just "so-so." Perhaps it will help to get Lynley and Havers back to London in their next book.
Book Review: By George, I think I liked it!
Summary: 4 Stars
Careless in Red seems to have inspired a great deal of contradictory opinions from long-time George fans. Some people think that it's a return to form after the generally disappointing What Came Before He Shot Her. Others find it still too long, grotesque, boring, etc.
Usually, when that kind of split occurs, you'll find me sitting firmly on the fence. But not this time. This time I was firmly in the return-to-form camp. I devoured the book. I was so pleased, since mystery novels have been leaving my generally indifferent lately.
Yes, it is self-indulgently long. I wasn't bothered. George is a fine stylist, and I was sorry when the book was getting close to being over.
What worked well for me was George's exploration of the emotional aftermath of violence. Lynley himself begins the book unsure as to whether he is going somewhere or walking himself to death. Nearly every character in the book is a survivor of one sort or the other, and the plot is as much about exploring that landscape of grief as it is about the actual murder.
I had two minor quibbles-- the character of Daidre annoyed me. That reaction made it difficult for me to care at all about her character arc. The second quibble had to do with the whodunnit part; the conclusion seemed to me far too pat in a variety of ways. Neither of these quibbles spoiled my pleasure.
Recommended.
Book Review: Too many words....
Summary: 3 Stars
I was so put off by the endless whinging of the last two books that I skipped Careless in Red until it appeared in paperback. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise, in that the first 500 pages were interesting and engaging. I attribute that in part to the absence of three of the four tedious navel pickers. And one can forgive Thomas, since he has had a pretty terrible tragedy to cope with.
So this one will please the fans. But anyone picking it up as their first Thomas Lynley mystery will be puzzled by those fans' enthusiasm. As ever, the book is about 1/3 longer than it needs to be. We forgive our relatives and friends for long-windedness, but we are less forgiving when we have to pay for it.
That is not the killer problem here, though. The maddening difficulty is that most attentive readers will figure out who the killer is around page 500, and then have to wade through another 200 pages before anyone in the book catches up -- and that in a most unsatisfying way, to boot. And worse yet, they will figure it out not because we are so clever, but they will recognize it as Plot 17.3.a. There is a brief flurry of doubt close to the end, when another candidate emerges (17.3.b), but it is, quite literally, quashed almost before we can sort out its implications.
Elizabeth George is a writer one has to read affectionately. Samuel Johnson, halfway to the end, would have hung himself.
Book Review: Inspector Lynley is back!
Summary: 5 Stars
I was eagerly waiting! Like its predecessors, I found this murder mystery very entertaining. I see from other reviewers that the comments are not as favourable as for other E. George's books but I disagree. Her style is unchanged and the story fully believable. I have always admired the way Ms. George is able to analyse her characters, with rare depth without getting boring.
Inspector Lynely is still devastated for the murder of his wife and son-to-be three months earlier. He has left his job and wonders aimlessly in his native Cornwall, walking around until exhaustion takes over. One day, edging a cliff, he sees the body of a young man. Despite his present detachment from the world, he immediately seeks help. And the plot begins to unfold...
The only thing I would change in this book is the marginal appearance of DS Barbara Havers, who's always been an intergral part of all Lynley's books. Here, she plays but a small part, too small for readers who missed her. Granted that it all adds up to the frame of the story (had she been more present from the beginning, it would not have made much sense for the circumstances surrounding Lynley), still, I would have loved a bigger involvement in the story. That's all. For the rest, a great book which adds up to the sequence of Ms. George's acclaimed books.