Friday, April 29, 2005

A Place of Hiding, by Elizabeth George

A Place of Hiding, by Elizabeth George

I really like the Inspector Lynley novels and was looking forward too reading this one. Unfortunately, this one concentrated on the most annoying regular: Deborah St. James. I like all the other main characters, but Deborah is a whiny, annoying, bitch. She spends most of the novel ignoring good advice and complaining that nobody takes her seriously. Simon (her husband) and Deborah get along so poorly that I thought the author was setting them up for a divorce, but no such luck. The next book in the series promises to be about Lynley and Havers, so I have higher hopes for it.

The mystery A Place of Hiding presents is fairly interesting, though. A philanthropist with a taste for (much) younger women is murdered amidst plans for a WWII museum. Suspects abound, and seemingly everyone on this small island has something to hide. Ms. George has set a high bar with her past work, but misses the mark here. If I wasn't familiar with the other novels in the series I think I would have enjoyed this much more.

First Sentence:
Santa Ana winds were no friend of photography, but that was something you could not tell an egomaniacal architect who believed his entire reputation rested on capturing for posterity — and for Architectural Digest—fifty-two thousand square feet of unfinished hillside sprawl today.

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