Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

For me, this novel was an unpleasant reading experience. I've read all the Lynley/Havers books, and I love the characters. We lost one character in the last installment, which was tragic, but that was the author's decision. Writers should write what they want, not what they think people expect, and for that Elizabeth George gets an A+ (and this review gets two stars instead of one). That said, I simply did not enjoy reading this book. For one thing, the regular cast is not in it. The story is told entirely from the point of view of Helen Lynley's killers, and they are a dull lot, to say the least. We are all painfully aware of poverty, racial inequality, disenfranchised youth, illegitimacy, illiteracy, apathy, despair, drugs, and all the other appalling social conditions that lead to certain types of crime. I have no solutions for these problems. I don't think Elizabeth George does, either. So what is the point of reading a hefty novel that merely repeats a long, droning laundry list of society's woes? I have little sympathy for the creatures who murdered Helen Lynley, and absolutely no sympathy for the social realities that created them. And if I want a sermon, I'll go to church. I can forgive this novel for being ambitious, even for being presumptuous, but not for being tiresome. Still, I'm looking forward to the next one....