A Great Deliverance (Inspector Lynley) | Elizabeth George | Characters, plot and social commentary

A Great Deliverance (Inspector Lynley) | Elizabeth George | oh, if I could write like this...

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A Great Deliveranc...

	A Great Deliverance (Inspector Lynley) Elizabeth George Bantam, 2007 - 432 pages average customer review:based on 62 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

To this day, the low, thin wail of an infant can be heard in Keldale's lush green valleys. Three hundred years ago, as legend goes, the frightened Yorkshire villagers smothered a crying babe in Keldale Abbey, where they'd hidden to escape the ravages of Cromwell's raiders.

Now into Keldale's pastoral web of old houses and older secrets comes Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley, the eighth earl of Asherton. Along with the redoubtable Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, Lynley has been sent to solve a savage murder that has stunned the peaceful countryside. For fat, unlovely Roberta Teys has been found in her best dress, an axe in her lap, seated in the old stone barn beside her father's headless corpse. Her first and last words were "I did it. And I'm not sorry."

Yet as Lynley and Havers wind their way through Keldale's dark labyrinth of secret scandals and appalling crimes, they uncover a shattering series of revelations that will reverberate through this tranquil English valley?and in their own lives as well.

From the Paperback edition.

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Characters, plot and social commentary

This is the first of the "Inspector Lynley Mysteries," in which the artistocratic Inspector Thomas Lynley and the working-class Sergeant Barbara Havers form a reluctant partnership to investigate a murder. Although the dead man's daughter has confessed to the crime, Lynley is not convinced, and the two detectives gradually unravel a complex web of troubled relationships in a small Yorkshire village while struggling with their own demons. The murder proves to be only one of the mysteries in the village, and the clues or red herrings that connect them include fragments of Shakespeare, verses from the Old Testament, and a centuries-old local legend (or is it a ghost story?) As well-plotted as the story is, the real interest here is the development of the two principals. The author gives us just enough of their respective back stories to explain the difficulties each has in adjusting to the partnership, while leaving enough unanswered questions to promise richer character development in succeeding volumes. After several false starts, Lynley and Havers gradually discover how to work together as a team and find the answer to more questions than the identity of the murderer.

The British preoccupation with social class, an important undercurrent of the series, is introduced in the form of Havers' negative asumptions about Lynley. These at first threaten to defeat both the investigation and the partnership, but Havers gradually comes to see her partner in a more realistic light. They begin to respect each other's professional talents--but not all the stereotypes have yet been erased; there is ample scope for future tension. The author, however, seems to have her own stereotyped ideas about Americans. An American couple vacationing at a country inn turn up as minor characters evidencing every imaginable cliche: bad grammar, bad manners, flashy jewelry, an Instamatic (this novel was first published in 1988) and even a Hawaiian shirt. Elizabeth George is on much firmer ground with her British characters.

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oh, if I could write like this...

"A great deliverance" is a textbook in introductory mystery novels. The characters are crisply outlined and developed; the plot is engaging (though not surprising). Ms. George establishes herself as a writer to be sought after and followed. Her Scotland Yard detectives Lynley and Havers are people we want to know, and to know in more detail.

unpleasant stereotypes but fine climx

I'd seen some of the Inspector Lynley mysteries on PBS and was curious to see what the books were like. The first shock was the character of Sergeant Barbara Havers, who on TV is kind of perky and cute. In the book, we're repeatedly told how ugly she is, also poorly dressed without dress sense and poisoned by class rage against the British aristocracy in general and its representative, Lynley, with whom she is forced to work, in particular.
George is apparently an American transplanted to Britain. I'm the other way around. She has a fine eye for the British class system and appears to have internalized many of its most unattractive features. You get the impression she's a real snob. Here's how she describes one of her American characters: "The appalling little man screwing his face up in excitement was too much to bear. He was wearing a saffron ployester suit, a matching shirt in a floral print and round his neck hung a heavy gold chain with a medallion that danced on the thick hair of his chest."
I've been in the States almost 20 years and have yet to meet anyone that looked remotely like that.
The British toffs by contrast are all cool elegance. Lynley's face "bore the unmistakeable stamp of aristocracy. It was Greek sculpture sort of face, unaccountably timeless."
For much of this book, I was confused, dismayed, appalled and puzzled. Why is this stuff so popular? But then, in the last 50 pages, the author gathers herself and delivers a genuinely powerful climax, with real emotional force. So there's the answer.
Still only gets three stars from me though -- because I prefer books with real charachers rather than caricatures.
For more on me and my book, The Nazi Hunter: A Novel go to www.alanelsner.com.

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Good for what it tries to be

Elizabeth George may not be the P. D. James replacement that I'm always looking for when I pick up a mystery set in England, but she delivers for readers. For anyone interested in the Inspector Lynley series, this is a must read. I picked it up because it was the first in the series and I thought it would guide whether I'd read more. The answer is maybe when I need some froth and find one of her books is handy. Nonetheless, I found irritating the way she throws in unfamiliar words that I'm loathe to bother to look up --- and don't need to in order to understand what's going on. I also found the romance-novel scenes a bit off-putting. But I'm sure those work for her devoted readers, of which there are clearly many. Finally, I give her high marks for focusing on character development and a character driven plot, even though the plot itself - perhaps for that reason - is slow to develop.

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