I do like Elizabeth George's style, and her way with a mystery, but this novel epitomizes everything in her Lynley series I find the most irritating. This particular book is set before the first in the series, A Great Deliverance. Which means it's Lynley without Havers. Havers only has a very brief appearance here, more a cameo, late in the book, two appearances less than a page each and a couple of mentions.
That leaves us with Thomas Lynley, Lord Asherton, up to his family manor Howenstow in Cornwall for an "engagement weekend" to introduce his fiance Deborah Cotter to his family; Lady Helen and Simon St James accompany him. The subplots involving Deborah, Simon and Helen in the other books have been my least favorite feature. Too often coincidences stretching credibility had been used to involve them in the mystery and their emotional entanglements too much a soap opera. At least in this story, since they are central to the mystery, it seems far less a distraction. And George is at the top of her game here plot-wise. I do like her way with red herrings and feints--she certainly kept me guessing to the end with more than one twist or turn.
But yes, I miss Havers and her working class sensibilities scraping against Lynley's upper class crust. At times here, such as when George has people ignoring a near-rape as an unpleasantness to be smoothed over, or when Lynley bungles in securing a crime scene, I couldn't help but wonder what Havers would have made of that. Havers and Lynley compliment each other, both in professional and in a literary sense, and I do think her being missing bumps this installment down a notch.
