Publisher's Weekly Review
With a British cricket term as its title, the seventh crime novel (after Missing Joseph ) featuring English Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers probes the proximity of love and hate. After cricket star Kenneth Fleming is found asphyxiated in a burned cottage on the estate of Miriam Whitelaw, his patron, Lynley and Havers, with local Detective Inspector Isabelle Ardery, look into the victim's tangled domestic affairs. Fleming, in the middle of divorce proceedings, was supposed to have been in Greece; the woman renting the cottage is missing. Lynley and Havers find the patron's wayward daughter, Olivia, formerly a drug user and prostitute, who, now afflicted with ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease--and Stephen Hawking's), is living on a barge with an animal-rights activist. Woven into the investigation are Olivia's accounts of her mother's relationship with the cricket star and of her own quest for her mother's love. Circumventing Ardery and using the media in a way discouraged by his superiors, Lynley puts his job in jeopardy. Although George's fluent prose is in full gear, the story fails to sustain momentum, sinking under the combined weight of superfluous detail and an overreaching psychological tone. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Another psychologically fraught case for Scotland Yard's upper-class Inspector Thomas Lynley and his rough-hewn Sergeant Barbara Havers (Missing Joseph, 1993, etc.) as they grapple with the death, by fire in a cottage in Kent, of cricket star Ken Fleming. The cottage, which had been rented to the glamorous wife of the sponsor of Ken's cricket team, is owned by wealthy widow Miriam Whitelaw, who had been Ken's high-school teacher, then his employer at Whitelaw Printing, and a longtime mentor. Ken, on the verge of ending his marriage to Jean Cooper, was about to take 16-year-old son Jimmy (oldest of his three children) on a holiday to Greece on the night he died. Ken was in his mid-30s, of an age with Miriam's long-estranged daughter Olivia, who hasn't seen or spoken to her mother in ten years. Some years back, Olivia was saved from a life of lying, cheating, and whoring by Chris Faraday, a man dedicated to animal rescue and impervious to her dubious charms. But a devastating blow forces her return to the past -- just as Lynley and Havers are proclaiming their stalking-horse killer. Rambling and effusively wordy, Playing For the Ashes holds the reader in thrall to the end -- a tribute to George's literary skills and storytelling magic. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
/*STARRED REVIEW*/ George is a gifted writer who spins rich, colorful, mesmerizing, multifaceted stories that combine an absorbing mystery with provocative insights into her characters' innermost thoughts and emotions. Her latest story once again features Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and his sidekick, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers. Chalk and cheese when it comes to background, philosophy, style, and personality, Lynley and Havers easily forget their differences when a tough homicide needs solving--take, for example, the asphyxiation death of renowned, all-England cricket player Kenneth Fleming. The duo's inquiries turn up some disturbing facts about the cricket star. Not only was his personal life a shambles, but he had a very odd relationship with a former teacher. The case is more byzantine than any Lynley and Havers have encountered in their years as a crack homicide team, and even when they've identified Fleming's killer, the file isn't really closed. As usual, there's more to think about in George's story than simply whodunit. Readers will be astounded by the ease with which she weaves complex relationships and provocative moral, emotional, and ethical questions into the compelling plot. Another tour de force from one of today's best storytellers. (Reviewed May 15, 1994)0553092626Emily Melton
