In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner
by Elizabeth George

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Book Reviews of In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

Book Review: Perhaps her best - but aren't they all?
Summary: 5 Stars

If you haven't read an Elizabeth George novel before, then this isn't the one to start with. At the very least, you need to read "Deception On His Mind" first. (I really believe that everybody should start with her first Lynley/Havers novel, "A Great Deliverance", and read them all in sequence, but I have to accept that some people may not be that ambitious or as fervent an admirer of Ms. George as I am!)

The long-simmering conflict between Havers and Lynley takes center stage in this novel. In order to accentuate the conflict, George has Lynley acting even more rigidly than usual, while Havers becomes even more impulsive. Masterful writer that she is, George uses the conflict between the two of them to make the mystery itself even more complex and interesting than usual.

The bare outlines of the story are that two murders are committed one night in an isolated area of a moor. One victim is the daughter of a retired Scotland Yard detective of Lynley's acquaintance; the other is a young man who aspired to be an artist but actually made his living distributing the business cards of prostitutes to phone booths and other public places. At the beginning the two victims seem to have no connection to each other, but we soon learn that the daughter had been living a double life, and was a highly paid dominatrix in London. There is, of course, an ample supply of suspects and motives. George handles both the mystery and the relationship between Havers and Lynley masterfully. And George has not forgotten the relationship between Havers and her Pakistani neighbor family that was so central to "Deception on his Mind". Although that relationship occupies only a few pages of this book, it is still perhaps the most emotionally moving part of the story.

In sum, this is another memorably wonderful Elizabeth George novel. I hope she never, never stops writing them.

Summary of In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

Literature & Fiction Books

• Subjects > Literature & Fiction
• Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > British Detectives
• Police Procedurals
• Thrillers > Suspense