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| Careless in Red: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Elizabeth George
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy Used: $7.50
You Save: $20.45 (73%)
New (57) Used (56) Collectible (10) from $7.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  122 reviews
Sales Rank: 2320
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 640
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 1.8
ISBN: 0061160873
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780061160875
ASIN: 0061160873
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: DJ shows slight edge wear.Spine shows light tilt.Pages are clean and free of marks.Satisfaction guaranteed. If item not as described, return for refund of purchase price.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Another disappointment--who cares about these people May 12, 2008
36 out of 54 found this review helpful
I have been a fan of Elizabeth George for years in spite of some annoying elements--the mix-and-match interpersonal relationships of the core characters, the continual whining of Deborah (get a grip, girl); the fact that Barbara doesn't seem to be able to get into Marks and Spencer and buy a couple of tolerable outfits after all these years; people NEVER being able to open their mouths and say what they think; the overdone British slang in every sentence (please, no more "sorting"); and, oh yes, the incredibly irritating "With No One As a Witness." In spite of the last two books--I refused to buy "What Came Before He Shot Her"--I looked forward to this book. I am very sorry to say that it was a great disappointment. I really didn't give a damn about most of the new characters and their stupid relationships. What a tedious group of people! What bores most of them are! I don't care who they have sex with or who killed Santo. (What an odd bunch of names these characters have. I assume the names are supposed to be Cornish, but they seemed more like Star Wars to me and odd for the sake of odd.) It is always a disaster when authors become so successful that no one will tell them when a book doesn't really work before it is published. For me, this book didn't work.
 `He found the body on the forty-third day of his walk.' August 10, 2008
22 out of 24 found this review helpful
Thomas Lynley, still coming to terms with the murder of his wife Helen, has retreated to Cornwall where he is hiking the bleak, rugged coastline alone with his thoughts, memories and demons.
On the forty-third day of his walk, he finds the body of a young man who appears to have fallen to his death. As the first person on the scene, Thomas Lynley himself is under suspicion.
Thus begins one of the most interesting mysteries I have read for some time. Can Thomas Lynley overcome his inner demons (and does he want to?) to assist the undermanned local police to solve what appears to be a carefully planned murder? Almost everyone in the local town appears to know something that might be relevant and almost no-one wants to volunteer any information. There are plenty of secrets and an abundance of red herrings to engage and distract the reader. Even if you do work out who did it, and why, before the end of the book as I did there are other aspects of the story which kept me interested to the end.
Barbara Havers is sent to assist the investigation. So we have a version of the old partnership between Lynley and Havers in operation together with a new partnership between Havers and Detective Inspector Bea Hannaford. There are plenty of interesting characters here and some complex (and not so complex) motivations come into play.
So, why four stars instead of five? Some aspects of the story worked brilliantly for me, others less so. But overall, this is an engaging novel which has me hoping that we've not seen the last of Lynley and Havers (and some of the other characters introduced, as well).
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
 Seeing Red May 10, 2008
21 out of 24 found this review helpful
Having read everything Ms. George has written, fiction and nonfiction, I am a fan. I bought both the Kindle and the hardback editions of Careless in Red in order to read the new novel quickly and also to own a hardback for Ms. George to autograph when she comes to our small town for a writer's conference in late May.
I am not a fan of this new novel. Granted most characters are believable and in the case of DI Hannaford darn right laudable, but the characters I most wanted fleshed out were merely the bare bones Ms. George used to hook long time readers into a largely sociological study of adolescent angst and midlife crisis set amongst British surfers and oversexed matrons. Even the smattering of antiquated vocabulary did little to earn my interest. (Although I do tip my hat to Ms. George's literary recognition of her move to western Washington State.)
If readers want to delve again into the lives of Lynley and Havers or if they want a complex whodunit, they'll be disappointed by Careless in Red. I confess to feeling more cheated by this entry in the Lynley series than by its predecessor. What Came Before He Shot Her can stand alone and may be appreciated as a deserved writing detour for the author of an otherwise satisfying British mystery series. Careless in Red continues down a path away from the original series and readers who have waited patiently for the reappearance of the author's central characters will be left wondering if Ms. George has left Sir Thomas by the wayside for good and all.
Ms. George has written of the differences between her serial mysteries and those of Agatha Christie. Ms. George reveals on her website that she chose to write about the development of her characters rather than engage in a "mental game" with readers. Ms. Christie's characters are "frozen in time" whereas Ms. George's characters will grow and change. Perhaps that is why I have found this particular novel so lacking. Lynley has been frozen on that terrible doorstep for George's readers for years now. Nothing new is revealed in the current novel that couldn't have been easily imagined by any devoted reader. That is the real failure of this novel. Ms. George has departed once too often from her own style to suit the devoted fan.
A Disappointment, Though Not Without Some Merits May 17, 2008
21 out of 25 found this review helpful
I've been a fan of Elizabeth George since 1988, when I read her first novel, "A Great Deliverance." Unfortunately, she has now and then produced a book that I've found rather tedious, largely it is heavily populated with secondary characters who have been of little real interest to me. These books, in my opinion, have included "In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner" and "A Place of Hiding."
Sadly, "Careless in Red" falls into that category. The premise is that Thomas Lynley, in dazed mourning after the violent death of his wife, Lady Helen, just weeks earlier, and having resigned (he thinks) from New Scotland Yard, is hiking the Cornish coastline when he stumbles across the murder of a young man. Naturally, he is recruited by the investigating officer to assist, particularly by looking into the background of a female suspect, while around him swirl intrigue and conflict involving the family of the dead man and several other people associated with him. As is usual in a George novel, these many characters have secrets -- some decades-old -- along with sexual/marital problems, parent/child problems, hatreds, resentments, and neuroses, which are examined at great length.
Normally, George's large casts of dysfunctional characters add depth and psychological interest. Here, however, the cast had me rolling my eyes in boredom. Perhaps I've read too many George books, so that her approach and self-consciously very studied prose style have begun to pall; or perhaps the surfing/rock climbing theme just didn't excite me; or perhaps I felt that the setting, a relatively isolated area of Cornwall, felt a little claustrophobic. (I tend to prefer George's London-based novels over those that take us to rural locations.) Whatever was irritating me, the reality is that I WAS irritated and grimly urging the author to "just get on with it, please."
The novel sparkles to life, not surprisingly, whenever Barbara Havers appears. There can be no doubt that Havers is George's most appealing and imaginative creation, given that the other regulars -- Lynley, and Simon and Deborah St. James, who do not play roles here -- tend to be a bit two-dimensional and repetitive in terms of their personalities and ongoing relationship crises. Havers crackles with energy in this book and manages to drag it out of the Slough of Despond in which everyone else is wallowing. George may once have been enchanted by the romantic and unlikely notion of a belted earl who is also a homicide detective, but she has clearly found that Havers offers considerably more scope for character development. If it hadn't been for Barbara in her rumpled clothes, puffing away on her ever-present cigarettes and puncturing the pretensions of everyone around her, I might well have chosen, for the very first time, not to finish a book by Elizabeth George.
But I did finish, and I'm not sorry. "Careless in Red" picks up a bit towards the end, which is laden with ambiguity -- not a fault, in my view, though some readers may experience frustration. And because the novel is undeniably well-written and thoughtful, I don't feel entirely negative about it and recognize that it simply didn't address my personal tastes. I can't fully recommend it, but there may well be some readers who will find it a considerably more enjoyable experience than I did.
A little disappointed May 17, 2008
20 out of 22 found this review helpful
As an avid Elizabeth George reader, I was quite disappointed with her latest novel. What I have loved about her books was the story, and her wonderful ability to flesh out characters that you could really identify with or understand on some level. Her books always left me thinking about the strengths and frailities of human relationships. Some of her characters have left a lasting impression on me: Thomas Lynley (if I could ever meet a fictional character, it would be him!), his wife Helen, Barbara Havers. Their many-layered, complex personalities made for great reading.
This latest effort failed me. The story was pretty good, although it lacked the usual suspense of a George novel. The descriptions of surfing were somewhat interesting, given this novel was set in bloody England!!!! Speaking of bloody England, the blinding love of all things English got to me a bit (I think maybe the "sorting" thing comes from too much Harry Potter). But the biggest fault for me lay in the area of character development. There was so much of it, the story got lost for me. So many characters were developed who didn't really seem to matter to the essential tale, in the end, and for whom you were never allowed to develop an affinity. And nothing prepared me for the version of the Superintendent Thonmas Lynley who appeared in this book. I didn't feel that I knew him at all; the portrayal of him as a broken man did not work for me, sorry to say. The newly sympathetic Havers was not exactly her old self either. If I could say anything to the author about this book, it would be: "What have you done with the real Thomas Lynley?"
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