Rating: 
Summary: Great Like All the Books in This Series
Review: I am very glad that I found Elizabeth George. I really love her books. Lynley and Havers are such a great team. They are so opposite that they complement each other. Ms. George is the best author of the psychological thriller that I've found. This book is about relationships as much as murder. The characters are as diverse as you'll find in any book, and the way Ms. George develops her characters is remarkable. The book is long, but it doesn't seem that way when you're into it. She takes the time to develop her characters and these are the most important part of her stories. The plot is there, but the characters are the highlight. This book shows what an obsessive relationship can cause, and how it affects more than just the two people involved. Olivia is a dream - I absolutely loved her in this story and I wept along with her.
Rating: 
Summary: slow starting, but picks up fast
Review: I found it hard to stay interested during the first couple of chapters, but Ms. George definitely takes care of that soon after. Characters are well developed and I found it hard to finger exactly "who done it". Fantastic ending!
Rating: 
Summary: Stretching the story
Review: I found this book to be about twice as long as should have been. In some places the dialogue just went on and on and on. With so few exciting events, it was a pretty dull book. I've read other Elizabeth George books and usually enjoy them but, then, no one bats 1000 every time. Although the author is good at character development and surprise endings she throws in too many details and there is too much conversation between secondary characters. Next time I want to read an Elizabeth George book, I think I'll check it out at the library.
Rating:
Summary: A Slow Start, But Still A Good Story
Review: I had a little more of a hard time getting involved in this story as easily as the others written by Elizabeth George, mostly because I don't know the first thing about cricket, the sport which the late Hugh Patten played before he was murdered, and, as a listener, I lost interest for a while in the middle of the story. I mean, aren't we trying to find out who killed Hugh Patten? It's still a fascinating mystery after you peel away the other layers, but I'm not going to elaborate on those. Instead, listeners can discover them on their own.
Rating:
Summary: The best mystery novel I have ever read
Review: I have been a mystery reader for decades, and have probably read close to a thousand mystery novels. This is probably the best of them. George manages to delve into relationships between husbands and wives, parents and children, professional colleagues, and various other combinations, with a penetrating and sympathetic insight. The mystery itself is not the most complex or difficult case that I have ever read about, but it is more than enough to keep the reader guessing and interested. The sheer beauty of George's writing is incomparable in the mystery field, but then anyone who has read one of her novels already knows that. It has become a cliche to praise a mystery novel by saying that it could stand on its own as a wonderful novel even without the mystery element, but this time the cliche is absolutely true
Rating:
Summary: Magestic work of Art,
Review: I have read all the Elizabeth George mysteries starting with A Great Deliverance that I happened to buy one night at a book store. I was ready to walk out and the sales lady said, "Try this one if you like mystery and intelligence." I was hooked.In this one, George takes a sharp turn. The complexity is still present but there is a bitterness here not found in her prior works. She never employs random killings, senseless crimes, or madmen. What she does do is paint a heart-rending portrait of the human condition better than anyone I know. Character and plot develop together - a difficult task that seems to be her forte. I wondered how the seemingly disparate parts related but never fear, they are joined in an incredible ending. The characters in this book continue to haunt me. Ones feelings toward the "heroine" slowly evolve from revulsion to anger to pity to awe as the story proceeds. The way she connects animal rights, disease, sports and above all, human relations, is superb. This is without a doubt one of the finest mysteries ever penned.
Rating:
Summary: Magestic work of Art,
Review: I have read all the Elizabeth George mysteries starting with A Great Deliverance that I happened to buy one night at a book store. I was ready to walk out and the sales lady said, "Try this one if you like mystery and intelligence." I was hooked. In this one, George takes a sharp turn. The complexity is still present but there is a bitterness here not found in her prior works. She never employs random killings, senseless crimes, or madmen. What she does do is paint a heart-rending portrait of the human condition better than anyone I know. Character and plot develop together - a difficult task that seems to be her forte. I wondered how the seemingly disparate parts related but never fear, they are joined in an incredible ending. The characters in this book continue to haunt me. Ones feelings toward the "heroine" slowly evolve from revulsion to anger to pity to awe as the story proceeds. The way she connects animal rights, disease, sports and above all, human relations, is superb. This is without a doubt one of the finest mysteries ever penned.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent mystery
Review: I have read every book from Elizabeth George and this is one of my favorites. It is well written and I enjoyed the development of the relationship between Lynley and Havers. It is very enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: The best Elizabeth George mystery.
Review: I love this author's mysteries. This is the first one I read, which made me go to the store and buy all her other books. I find this was the best one. The plotting is flawless and the characters are completely intriguing. I found that in this book she had many levels to the story, many nuances - and that was not necessarily so in her other mysteries (not to say the others aren't excellent). It's just that even after reading all her other works, this one stands out in my mind as the very best & I remember the plot more clearly than her others. By the way Barbara Havers is one of my all-time female characters. I find her to be extremely likeable and realistic. Go Barbara - go Ms. George!
Rating: 
Summary: Terrible - over long
Review: I read the first 300 pages then gave up completely frustrated at the amount of time I had wasted. I skipped to the last few chapters to find out "who dunit" and even found the ending frustrating. The author has taken character development to the extreme, or even beyond. I was half expecting to come across a chapter about how Lynley cuts his toe nails, and how Havers reads some sort of class difference into this act. In summary don't waste your time reading this book. I have read other books by the same author and have always felt somewhat unsatisfied at the end, but this is by far the worst.
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