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| Careless in Red LP: A Novel (Thomas Lynley and Barbara Havers Novels) | 
 enlarge | Author: Elizabeth George
Publisher: HarperLuxe
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  119 reviews
Sales Rank: 451983
Format: Large Print
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 1024
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.7
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 2.2
ISBN: 0061562785
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780061562785
ASIN: 0061562785
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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Product Description
In her most eagerly anticipated novel yet, Elizabeth George brings back Scotland Yard's Thomas Lynley to investigate a ruthless crime. After the senseless murder of his wife, Detective Superintendent Thomas Lynley retreated to Cornwall, where he has spent six solitary weeks hiking the bleak and rugged coastline. But no matter how far he walks, no matter how exhausting his days, the painful memories of Helen's death do not diminish. On the forty-third day of his walk, at the base of a cliff, Lynley discovers the body of a young man who appears to have fallen to his death. The closest town, better known for its tourists and its surfing than its intrigue, seems an unlikely place for murder. However, it soon becomes apparent that a clever killer is indeed at work, and this time Lynley is not a detective but a witness and possibly a suspect. The head of the vastly understaffed local police department needs Lynley's help, though, especially when it comes to the mysterious, secretive woman whose cottage lies not far from where the body was discovered. But can Lynley let go of the past long enough to solve a most devious and carefully planned crime?
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| Customer Reviews: Read 114 more reviews...
 Intense, disturbing thriller proves that Elizabeth George is back May 11, 2008
166 out of 181 found this review helpful
After my disappointment with Elizabeth George's previous two novels, I was a bit concerned when the next book in this ongoing series, Careless in Red was announced. But in having gamely read her series, and knowing that sometimes an author will go off on a tangent, I decided to give this one a chance. If it failed, well, I could always go back to the earlier novels of the series, and leave it at that.
Thomas Lynley, aristocrat and Scotland Yard detective, has retreated to the wilds of the Cornish coast to cope with the loss of his beloved wife and unborn child. He has deliberately cut himself off from everyone he knows, heading off to a future that even he can't comprehend. But the real world is about to intrude and shatter his illusions.
A rock climber has fallen to his death in a remote cove, and unfortunately for Lynley, he's the one who discovers the body. Almost at the same time, the owner of the nearby cottage, Daidre Trahair, returns as he is breaking into her home, and together they report the death. The downside to all of this is that it presents both of them as potential subjects.
For Santo Kerne has been murdered, and as with a good thriller, there's plenty of potential criminals here. Santo was an energetic young surfer, mad for women, and still able to exercise a great deal of charm -- enough to where it's just odd that anyone would kill him.
And the local police chief, DI Bea Hannaford, has plenty of problems of her own. From an ex-husband who is also a police officer, to a teenage son that fill of fire and rebellion, and an assistant who makes mere incompetence look good -- she's not a happy woman. Especially when she finds out who Lynley is.
The victim's family are also not much of a treat either. They've been renovating a dinosaur of an Edwardian hotel, seeking to lure the tourists with promising adventures in the wild splendours of Cornwall, but money is tight, and when Ben Kerne's wife, Dellen, is less than stable, it threatens to bring back a lot of family secrets.
Especially when it seems that Ben Kerne was involved in a very similar death some decades earlier...
I have to say, Elizabeth George is back with this novel. There's plenty of details, an ingeneous use of the colour red, and the fraught relationships here are stretched so tight that they hum with tension. Which is a real plus. Right up to the final pages, the story keeps at a very tight pace, and I found myself reading well into the night, wanting to know just what happens next.
Fans of Barbara Havers may be disappointed that she doesn't appear until partway through the novel, but she is always a treat to watch in action, and she doesn't miss a beat in this one. Especially when she is working with Bea Hannaford, the two of them in a wicked variation of good cop/bad cop.
The exotic names and locals of the Cornish countryside add a very rich flavour to the story. Another plus are the use of sports such as surfing and rock climbing. It's an England that we're familiar with, but not quite.
But naturally, where Ms. George excells is in the internal worlds of her characters. This time, the one that really takes center stage is Thomas Lynley himself. Mentally fragile, adrift, the reader is treated to a very new and fresh look at a character that has appeared in previous novels as someone clever and forthright, seemingly unable to break. It works here, and works well. The relationship that he develops with Daidre is fascinating to watch, and we get to see just how human he is under the cool exterior of a posh swell.
I was really taken by surprise by this one. The story was tightly written and compelling, with the author plotting and drawing the reader into this story of families and communities tied together by secrets and old conflicts. The theme of family ties and the tenuous and rather tricky love between fathers and sons are explored. What I did like was that George is not at all shy about looking at the uglier side of human emotions and motivations, and she uses them to great effect to create this moody thriller.
Happily recommended, and a must-read for any fans of the series. Four and a half stars rounded up to five.
 penned in purple May 18, 2008
72 out of 87 found this review helpful
One of the earlier reviewers suggests that this novel is over-written, with passages meant, perhaps, to be poetic, but seeming instead over-literary. While I agree, I'd suggest another phrase.
Bad. The writing is bad. It's what college comp teachers used to call Purple Prose.
Elizabeth George is a writer I've always admired. Her prose is generally intelligent, literate, and vivid. Either she's now trying to win a Booker Prize (give it up, honey, you're an American) or her laptop has acquired a dire virus, because this book oozes with infelicitous constructions. An ugly grocery store is "sprawled like a nasty thought" at a crossroads; a pathologist is "thin as an ageing spinster's marital hopes;" a girl's collarbones protrude "like the excrescent evidence of dutch elm disease on the bark of a tree." (_What?_)
Please. This prose is trying too hard.
While these phrases certainly leap off the page, they don't do anything to advance the plot or theme or to provide fresh mental images - indeed, some don't even scan, so to speak -- and good prose shouldn't call such raucous attention to itself.
Then there are the names. No one doubts that Ms George does her homework on settings. Indeed, some of her books have sunk under the sheer weight of geographic and historic detail. Here she adds hard-to-remember names to the mix, lest we miss that everyone is in Cornwall. There's Selevan Penrule, Cadan Angarrack, Daidre Trahair, Ione Soutar, Benesek, Santo, and Dellan Kerne, and Aladara Pappos, a Greek, thrown in for good measure. George would, of course, scorn giving us a Greek named Maria or Daphne. (As a passing thought, I pray that the series never takes Ms George to Wales.) Here, I virtually wept with relief at the local DI's name: Beatrice Hannaford. I did, however, like the parrot named Pooh -- until I learned it was for excrement, not Winnie.
Elizabeth George specializes in miserable families. Since all her readers know that, it's probably unfair to complain, but the misery here is virtually unrelieved. The theme of fathers failing to know their children is older than the Lear plot, but that doesn't make it any the less depressing.
We don't hear Barbara Havers' voice until page 227, and she doesn't appear for another eighty pages. I'm a Havers fan, and she's barely present. Sadly, this long-awaited novel reminds me of A Place of Hiding, my least-favorite entry in the series.
Death In Cornwall May 7, 2008
57 out of 68 found this review helpful
Lynley's back! If this news thrills you, then you've already discovered the wonderful novels of Elizabeth George. If you haven't yet encountered the titled Englishman/police detective and his marvelous colleague, Barbara Havers, it's high time you did.
Mourning the recent loss of his wife, Lynley is hiking the shorelines of his home county, Cornwall, when he discovers the body of a young man at the base of a cliff. Accident or murder? The local police chief sees Lynley as a witness--and possibly a suspect. To help the police (and clear his own name), he lingers in the seaside town, meeting a vivid gallery of people with various connections to the victim. The grieving Lynley's reluctant entry into the investigation might just be his ticket back to the world of the living.
As ever, George's mystery is solid, her characters are brilliantly complex, and her writing style is as elegant as it is eloquent. This series is sheer pleasure, and CARELESS IN RED is an excellent new addition to it. Highly recommended.
 Unhappy families May 10, 2008
46 out of 51 found this review helpful
Detective Superintendent Thomas Lynley has suffered a huge personal loss, and is walking the rugged cliffs of Cornwall to come to terms with it. "Careless in Red" is not only the story of his struggle with grief, it is the story of several families and their similar struggles, with a focus on the understandable (but vain) effort of parents to control the lives of their children.
In the course of his walk, Lynley finds the body of young Santo Kerne at the bottom of the cliff he had been climbing, and as the investigation of the death develops, the superintendent is drawn into it at the behest of local police Detective Inspector Bea Hannaford, who is having family problems of her own. DS Barbara Havers makes an appearance--and a somewhat unusual partner for DI Hannaford.
Cornwall and its surfing world are well handled in this new Lynley novel. (One minor complaint is that some terms of climbing are not explained.) While not all the characters are believable (voluptuous Dellen Kerne and her son Santo are among those who test that limit), most are fully rounded and lifelike; and several are very amusing. (I really savored DI Hannaford and company.) Some of the descriptive passages and dialogues are overwritten--meant, I think, to be poetic, but seeming instead over-literary. The resolution of the murder is not particularly satisfying, not because of the identity of the murderer, but because of the final mechanics of the solution.
I found the novel very enjoyable, and if you are a Lynley and Havers fan, I think you will too. The complications of parenthood are nicely explored, and the bittersweet consequences of love and loss, Lynley's and others, will draw you in.
strong English police procedural May 6, 2008
36 out of 53 found this review helpful
Following the homicide of his beloved pregnant wife Helen (see WITH NO ONE AS WITNESS and the companion piece without Lynley in it: WHAT CAME BEFORE HE SHOT HER), a grieving Thomas Lynley quit Scotland Yard. Time has not proved a healer as the former detective spends his days aimlessly wandering around his hometown of Cornwall.
While on one of his senseless treks to numb the pain especially when he returns home at night, Lynley finds the battered body of teenager Santo Kerne, who it appears fell of a cliff while mountain climbing. When evidence affirms that someone sabotaged the victim's equipment, Detective Inspector Bea Hannaford looks in the direction of the person who found the corpse. However, the cantankerous consummate professional also knows Lynley had no motive so looks to see who might. Lynley provides some limited assistance, as he is unable to do much more even understanding that he is the prime suspect.
The key to this police procedural that follows up on the tragic events of WITH NO ONE AS WITNESS is that in spite of the situation he finds himself in, Lynley still mourns deeply and the case does not stop that nor turn him into super-cop. Instead he plays second fiddle (some might say audience) as Hannaford conducts the investigation. The whodunit is cleverly devised and would stand out on its own as a strong English police procedural, but it is the realism of the two cop-characters who make Elizabeth George's latest thriller a terrific tale.
Harriet Klausner
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