WITH NO ONE AS WITNESS
by Elizabeth George
copyright 2005
When the police find a murdered white teenager, Inspector Lynley, Barbara Havers and Winston Ngata are assigned the case. It quickly becomes apparent that the acting Superintendent doesn't like Lynley, and Ngata is only assigned to the case so that he can appear as the token black man at press conferences, and Havers is on the case so she can fail and be fired. Initial investigation indicates that this murder is the work of a serial killer, who has murdered three other boys, who were of mixed race, and who were left in different police districts. A consultant who trained with the FBI to profile serial killers is brought in, and Inspector Lynley has difficulty keeping him away from the crime scene when yet another child is killed.
Inspector Lynley seems not to be in the forefront of this book; Barbara Havers and Winston Ngata do much of the work. This book was very long, over 600 pages, and I struggled as I read it, because it was an extremely dark book, with themes of a serial killer of troubled youths and pedophelia wound throughout really disturbed me. It's too bad I chose this as the first of Elizabeth George's books to read, because while it was well written, I didn't like it. I did take a look at reviews by others on Amazon, and it seems there were a lot of opinions like mine. I actually read this 3 weeks ago, and it has taken this long for it to stop disturbing me to the point that I could write this review. So with that in mind, I can only rate this book 3/5.
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On another note, if you happen to be a fan of the TV show "The Office", and I'm not, the series finale is tonight, and for the hour before the show, they're running a special which was filmed here in Scranton a couple of weeks ago. Someone arranged a fan party, and many of the actors in the show were here, and NBC sent a film crew to follow the weekend long, city wide fan-fest. If you've never wanted to visit Scranton, this is a way to fulfill that wish without expending airfare.
Happy Thorsday, everyone!
6 comments:
I've struggled with Elizabeth George's books too. They just seem to go on forever, and I find myself wishing they were over.
I'm sorry you didn't like her, though, admittedly, I'm familiar with her work from the early 90's. You might like one of those. Then again, you might not.
I tried watching the office a few times and never quite understood it!
Hi Marjie, sorry to give you a fright with our blog. The fire was close and out of control at one stage but if our home burnt down, our whole little town would go and that would be virtually impossible (touch wood). Still with bushfires, and we've had some terrible ones, you never can tell how they will go. Take care and have a great weekend. No worries, and love, Carol
I am not a fan of dark books like this... I am too sensitive.
I've never seen any of those shows, but I have been to Scranton many times.
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