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Summary
Summary
Elizabeth George "reigns as the queen of the mystery genre." ravesEntertainment Weekly, which named her most recent novel,In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner, on of the 10 best books of 1999. The author who has enthralled millions with masterworks of dazzling novels of literary suspense returns with her most astonishing work yet. "Ms. George proves that the classiest of crime writers are true novelists," proclaimed theNew York Times, and each of her previous ten novels has been an instant international bestseller. Now, with A TRAITOR TO MEMORY, George returns to the themes which have made her a master of the genre she has made distinctly her own--the classic detective story that is also a richly rewarding tapestry of passion, loyalty, and betrayal. She is a writer like no other, and her novels mark a magnificent literary achievement. "To listen is to be, but to play is to live..." So, believes Gideon Davies, 28-year-old musical wunderkind, a virtuoso violinist whose talents are internationally celebrated. When Gideon finds himself center-stage, unable to play, his tortured search for his music--and for the truth behind the appalling event that shaped his life--will lead him to the very heart of love's darkest manifestations.
Author Notes
Elizabeth George was born on February 26, 1949, in Warren, Ohio. She received a bachelor's degree in education from the University of California in Riverside and a master's degree in counseling/psychology from California State University at Fullerton. She taught English in high school for about thirteen years before leaving to become a full-time writer. She is the New York Times and internationally best selling author of twenty British crime novels featuring Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and his unconventional partner Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers. Her novel, A Great Deliverance, won the Anthony Award, the Agatha Award, and France's Le Grand Prix de Literature Policiere in 1989. Her crime novels have been translated into 30 languages and featured on television by the BBC. She is also the author of a young adult series set on the island where she lives in the state of Washington. Her title's include Edge of Light, The Edge of the Shadows, The Edge of the Water, I, Richard, and The Punishment She Deserves.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
HClassical music, cybersex and vehicular homicide figure prominently in this sprawling epic, the latest in the bestselling Thomas Lynley series that has won George an enviable following on both sides of the Atlantic. This can only add to her growing reputation as doyenne of English mystery novelists. When Eugenie Davies is killed on a London street struck by a car, then viciously mangled as the driver backs over her Detective Inspector Lynley investigates. The suspects include J.W. Pichley, aka TongueMan, a cyber-rou with a penchant for older women; Katja Wolff, convicted murderess of Davies's infant daughter; and Major Ted Wiley, a bookstore proprietor in love with Davies. Inevitably, the trail leads to the dead woman's son, Gideon, a former child prodigy on the violin, now a renowned virtuoso suddenly and inexplicably unable to play a single note. Lynley and his longtime partners, Barbara Havers and Winston Nkata, unravel the mystery in their inimitable fashion, as the narrative turns backward, ever backward, in search of clues. Although some plot developments are initially confusing due to the book's occasionally non-linear style, the author's handling of narrative is consistently inventive. There are some amusing character sketches (including the skewering of an American Valley Girl to whom classical music is as foreign as Sanskrit) and some particularly moving moments. Faithful readers of George's previous mysteries should find this the most ambitious of the lot. (July 3) Forecast: With the BBC adaptation of the first Lynley case, A Great Deliverance, due to premier on U.S. TV this fall, George stands to scale new heights in sales. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Posh Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and his surly, recently demoted (In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner, 1999, not reviewed) sidekick, Constable Barbara Havers, take a backseat to a plethora of unlikable, haphazardly motivated characters who pop in and out over epic length (enormous even by George's garrulous standards) and nearly two decades. After Eugenie Davies becomes a hit-and-run victim, it takes 200 pages for her to get connected to violin virtuoso Gideon Davies, now undergoing therapy to discover the cause of his artistic block. In rambling rants to his therapist, he wonders whether his mother Eugenie's abrupt departure years ago is now haunting him. Gideon recalls their lodger, James, now prowling the Internet as TongueMan; his musical tutor Raphael; his school tutor Sarah-Jane; and, most importantly, Katja Wolff, the German nanny hired to look after his baby sister, a Down's syndrome child. As Lynley, Havers, and their cohort Nkata learn, Katja has just been released from prison, where she spent 20 years for killing her infant charge. Was she guilty? Is she now exacting revenge? And why did Gideon repress not only his sister's murder but her very existence? There'll be another car mishap, more death, more therapy sessions, and several bogus confessions (including one from Gideon's misogynist, controlling dad) before this wrenching saga of family relations lurches to a horrific end. George strews the guilt liberally, even smearing Lynley, before he finally deals with his past and his impending fatherhood. Meantime, her plot has serious problems, from Katja's lengthy silences to the overripe corn of Gideon's psychoanalysis. Even at diminished strength, though, George still stands several rungs up the ladder from her more superficial rivals. Author tour
Booklist Review
George writes Victorian novel^-length mysteries (this latest weighs in at more than 700 pages) that fairly zip along, keeping the reader on the knife's edge of suspense, thanks to George's skill at weaving together intriguing characters, disturbing action, police procedure, psychological insight, and mordant wit. In this, the eleventh installment in the Lynley-Havers series, the Derbyshire detectives are called to London, at the behest of their superintendent, to investigate a vehicular homicide. The female hit-and-run victim was at the core of a celebrated child-murder case years before. George makes this far more a novel of character than a procedural by shifting points of view from the aristocratic, cerebral Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley to his rough-hewn, unmarried, somewhat bitter partner, Detective Constable Barbara Havers, and to the estranged son of the murder victim, a celebrated violinist tortured by his baby sister's death. First-rate suspense with a stunner of an ending. --Connie Fletcher
Library Journal Review
An interesting twist from George: her protagonist is a young violin virtuoso whose sudden inability to play while center stage leads him into a dark secret in his past. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.