For the Sake of Elena | Elizabeth George

For the Sake of Elena | Elizabeth George | New Depths of Character Amid a Transparent Plot

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For the Sake of Elena

	For the Sake of Elena Elizabeth George Bantam, 2008 - 464 pages average customer review:based on 24 reviews view larger image
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Elena Weaver was a surprise to anyone meeting her for the first time. In her clingy dresses and dangling earrings she exuded a sexuality at odds with the innocence projected by the unicorn posters on her walls. While her embittered mother fretted about her welfare from her home in London, in Cambridge?where Elena was a student at St. Stephen's College?her father and his second wife each had their own very different image of the girl. As for Elena, she lived a life of casual and intense physical and emotional relationships, with scores to settle and goals to achieve--until someone, lying in wait along the route she ran every morning, bludgeoned her to death.

Unwilling to turn the killing over to the local police, the university calls in New Scotland Yard. Thus, Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and his partner, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, enter the rarefied world of Cambridge University, where academic gowns often hide murderous intentions.

For both officers, the true identity of Elena Weaver proves elusive. Each relationship the girl left behind casts new light both on Elena and on those people who appeared to know her best?from an unsavory Swedish-born Shakespearean professor to the brooding head of the Deaf Students Union.

What's more, Elena's father, a Cambridge professor under consideration for a prestigious post, is a man with his own dark secrets. While his past sins make him neurotically dedicated to Elena and blind to her blacker side, present demons drive him toward betrayal.

From the Paperback edition.

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Fantastic Series!

Elizabeth George is a modern day Agatha Christie. Her books keep you guessing until the end!

New Depths of Character Amid a Transparent Plot

I love novels that do character development well. In the typical English murder mystery, the victim is usually a bloodless body which quickly disappears from the story after dying. A department store dummy would serve as well.

The beauty of For The Sake of Elena is that Ms. George does a thorough and fascinating job of describing the victim. Elena is an unusual character as well in that she lives somewhere between the hearing and the deaf world, finding solace in neither one. As a spirited woman with strong opinions, she finds herself able to twist the people and events around her into new directions.

In the background, Lynley uses Elena's death as a reason to pursue Lady Helen to Cambridge where she has gone to avoid him. His haunted pursuit of Lady Helen will ring strongly with those who love romantic novels. Barbara Havers also finds herself torn between pillar and post in trying to care for her aging mother while maintaining her career. Lynley and Havers soldier on through this complication in a way that will remind you of an old married couple dealing with adversity. It's solid stuff!

The book's major disappointment is the murder mystery. It's painfully transparent, and the red herrings are too obviously red to be any good.

Had Ms. George planned to write a romantic novel instead, this book would probably have worked much better as she magnificently displays all of the positive and negative aspects of attraction and romance for your full consideration.

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intriguing mystery

When a deaf university student is found murdered on her daily run, the college is in an uproar. When Detectives Thomas Lynley and his partner Barbara Havers investigate they discover the various intrigues in the girl's life: she was pregnant and sexually involved with several men, including a professor. Meanwhile, her jealous mother and stepmother clash, and it is discovered that her father was having an affair. Red herrings abound in this satisfying, intriguing mystery, and the murderer is almost impossible to see coming.

It's half five-star and half one-star, to be honest

This book is part of a series featuring the police duo of Lynley and Havers teaming up to fight crime in England. I read the first in the series for another book club, and this one appears to be quite a ways down the line. From some of the passages you can glean that a lot has happened in their personal lives, and I can't help but think I'm missing quite a bit by not having read the intervening books. That being said, if you discount that part of the book, it was a really good story. One of those that you can look back at bits (once you know the end) and go "ooooh! I see..." A very intricately woven story, full of red herrings and blind alleys.

However, that personal bit - the part about Lynley and Helen, in particular - was not at all good. Not only because I didn't get all of it because I'd missed books, but the actually interplay between the characters... it was just bad. I mean, the conversations between them seemed more suited to 18th century England that the present day. And that is one of the things that feels odd about the book - though it is placed in modern times, it somehow manages to feel very old and dated. And I don't know how, or why, it just seems that way.

Also, I don't at all understand the English school system, featured heavily in this book

I'm torn on recommending it. On one hand, it's a very well written book. Not only is the storyline incredibly compelling, it's very well written. But on the other hand... it's a very easy book to put down, and almost feels like a bit of a chore to read. And that's no fun. No fun at all.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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