Rating: 
Summary: Absorbing, Intense, Live in the narrator's shoes!
Review: . . . .~ ~ - ~ ~
~ - ~ One of Elizabeth George's strengths as a mystery writer is her ability to create complex intriguing characters, who can alternate between winning our sympathy and earning our intense dislike. She creates people in intolerable situations that bring out the best and even more strongly illustrated - the absolute worst parts of the character's personality. ~ - ~ This book may be the most intense of all. A young woman, alienated from her family, who is writing a journal, narrates most of the story. We understand from the beginning that her tale will somehow come to reveal important information about the death of a Cricket star, Kenneth Fleming.
Although, in the beginning, her story seems to have little to do with the murder, it is still the fascinating tale of her life. It is very intense and gritty reading about the wrongs committed by her mother and herself. She certainly doesn't paint herself in a rosy light.
It's only because she has reached some maturity of understanding, that we can dislike the actions she took in the past, and still have sympathy for her in the present. ~ - ~ Inspector Tommy Lynley and Sergeant Barbara Havers are investigating the murder. However, unlike the other books in this series, very little of the book is devoted to their lives. The story really belongs to the detestable and loveable narrator. ~ - ~ This is an absorbing and fascinating story, with an unexpected ending. Like all of George's books, you won't be able to put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Maybe the Best Thus Far?
Review: Having read the previous Lynley/Havers mysteries by Elizabeth George, I have come to expect nothing but the best from her and this book did not disappoint. I am always amazed at Ms. George's ability to weave multiple storylines into a coherent, fascinating, enjoyable story. Another thing that occurred to me while reading this book is that all of George's characters have some redeeming quality(ies), even the murderer, because she understands that nothing and no one is simply good or bad, but rather varying shades of grey. And so it is in this compelling mystery involving a mother/daughter separated for years, a husband/wife also separated and a mother dealing with a verbally abusive teenage son. For each of the characters, you feel empathy, sympathy, dislike (at times bordering on loathing), love, and compassion. I have already bought the remaining books in this series and am now trying to figure a way to stop myself from reading them too quickly!
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: 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: Terrific Plot But The Characters Could Have Been Better
Review: No one plots as well as Elizabeth George and her books are worth every penny for that alone. With the execption of Barbara Havers, though, I just don't like her characters and find them more than a little unbelievable. (I can usually overlook this, however, because the basic story is so darn good.) With this book, however, Ms. George veers into the wierd and the absurd. Olivia was so very disgusting that I could barely finish the book despite the engaging plot. George did do a fabulous job of intertwining the two stories but Olivia was just too much of a freak to feel any empathy for her or for her plight. Frankly, I wished she'd just drop dead. Olivia, that is. I'm probably one of the least prudish persons in the world, but there are things I prefer not to read about in an otherwise first-rate mystery. The softening of Olivia would have done a lot to improve this book and render it a true classic. I wish Ms. George would leave the sexually explicit themes to others, but I'll keep reading--her plots are simply the best.
Rating:
Summary: Commendable, but...
Review: No plot twist goes unexexamined, and no sub-plot is too small, in this tedious, over-blown mystery. It takes true dedication to pull through.
Rating:
Summary: Returning Again and Again
Review: Playinng for the Ashes is the best mystery I have ever read. The skill of the narrative is amazing. I am a student of Henry James and know he himself would be astounded at the complex weaving of character and situation and the evolution of a self-centered, self-destructive young woman into a caring and loving individual. Chris Farady has to be one of the great characters of the English novel. George has a way of putting true goodness on the page that is utterly credible and, most of all, ever human. I love this book and turn to it over and over. I feel the characters are real people who influence the ways I think and treat others. I hope Elizabeth George brings these characters back to us, as she does her major ones.
Rating:
Summary: A lot in one book!
Review: This book covers a tremendous amount of ground, and it is sometimes unclear how all the pieces fit together. Where else would you find cricket, ALS, and animal rights activists all in one novel? This is a novel that takes all of these disparate subjects, plus the lives of Thomas Lynley and Barbara Havers, and manages to bring them together, in a way that is ultimately fascinating. The change of narrration from the rest of the books in this excellent series is particularly interesting. Olivia is a compelling narrator, and it is easy for the reader to get carried along in her version of her mother's and Kenneth Fleming's life and then have to remind oneself that this is her imagined version, subject to interpretation, personal issues, etc. Barbara Havers has some new and perplexing characters to deal with here, who have promise for the future. Gradually her self-imposed isolation is starting to be broken down, leaving her puzzled, chagrinned, and more human than ever before. I was less interested in the continuing vaccilations of Thomas Lynley's relationship with Lady Helen.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing -- and more than a whodunit
Review: This was the book that got me hooked on Elizabeth George. More than a whodunit, this book is about life as real people live it. It explores the characters of everyone, the victim, his wife, his sponsor, his lover, all the relationships involved, especially the bizarre one with his sponsor, even the lives of Lynley and Havers. That's what can make Elizabeth George a difficult read in the beginning -- all these intertwined lives moving in and out of the book. The actual whodunit was devastating, but understandable. This, to me, was a sad book, to say the least, but there was a glimmer of hope in the end. I hardly read whodunits twice. This was the exception -- and I did it, not to review the movements of the killer, but to try to understand the characters better. I have since acquired all her other books, even the first one I tried to read, and I'm waiting for the paperback edition of her latest book to come out. Elizabeth George's books are painful to read, they always hit you in the gut. I don't always like the stories, the deaths are often brutal, but, for some reason, I am hooked.
Rating:
Summary: The best one yet
Review: This, basically, normal George. Exactly what we have come to expect from a practioner of some really beautiful english language. Her books are always incredibly involving, centring not just on the lives of the main characters, but featuring lives of all the subisidiary characters heavily. This makes the book feel more realisitc, lifelike. More true. After all, it is more like a proper murder case. The writing is excellent. Sometimes she needs to learn the secret of brevity, though. Also, on occasion she takes the "show, don't tell" rule a bit too far. Nonetheless, her writing is often beautiful, complex, and a joy to read. Her characters are so well developed. Its more like watching a real-life drama than it is reading a book. All their small insecurities, personality traits, personal relationships, interactions with other characters, are brought to the fore, making them jump off the page, and sometimes going a bit over the top. (Which is Elizabeth George's only crime.) This is probably the best book, in terms of plotting, solution, structure, etc. The parrallel tracks the story runs on are done gloriously well, and they finally both converge together brilliantly. The solution is unexpted, and the culprit a surprise. Overall, this is a very good crime novel, but it does suffer a bit from some of George's normal flaws. Her depictions of english life are apt to be a little off and over the top. SHe sometimes takes character development too far. And most of the books are a bit too long. Nonetheless, i can live with all that. After all, this is still a really good mystery.
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