“Believing the Lie” is Elizabeth’s George 17th Inspector Lynley mystery. The patrician Thomas Lynley is still suffering from the senseless murder of his wife and unborn child. David Hillier, Assistant Commissioner of New Scotland Yard, asks Lynley to look into the death of Ian Cresswell. Ian’s uncle, Lake District industrialist Bernard Fairclough, is not satisfied with the local coroner’s ruling of accidental death by drowning. Hillier tells Lynley to investigate Cresswell’s death on the qt. Thomas is also told not to mention anything about this inquiry to his immediate superior (and sometimes lover) Detective Superintendent Isabelle Ardery.
Lynley is accompanied on his trip to the Lake District by his friends Simon and Deborah St. James. Simon is a forensics expert and Deborah is a photographer. Thomas’ usual partner at New Scotland Yard is Detective Sargent Barbara Havers. Havers stays in London and secretly helps Lynley research the many angles of the Ian Cresswell drowning.
When Thomas and the St. James arrive in the Lake District, they find a large number of suspects, most of them connected to the Fairclough family. With fantastic skill, George weaves the many subplots into a truly thrilling and fascinating novel.
Chief among the suspects is Nicholas Fairclough, Bernard’s only son. Nicholas is a recovering meth addict who is married to a beautiful Argentine woman named Alathea. Also under consideration by Lynley are Bernard Fairlough’s twin daughters Manette and Mignon. Manette and her ex-husband Freddie, with whom she still shares living quarters, are executives at Fairclough Industries. Mignon, who suffered a head injury when she was a child, does nothing but cause family drama and accept free room and board from her aging parents.
Drowning victim Ian Cresswell’s ex-wife Niamh is still furious that her former husband left her for a man. She wants nothing to do with their two children, troubled fourteen year old Tim and sweet ten year old Gracie. The children have been left in the care of Ian’s lover Kaveh Mehran. Cresswell had wanted to marry Kaveh, but Mehran kept putting him off. Now Kaveh is planning on moving his parents and bride-to-be into the house Ian left him in his will.
There is even a tabloid journalist, Zed Benjamin, who desperately needs to discover something scandalous about the Fairclough family so he can keep his job. Benjamin enters into an alliance with Deborah St. James. Deborah is fixated on Nicholas’ wife Alathea. The Argentine beauty is dealing with infertility issues, as is Deborah herself.
I am a huge fan of Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley mysteries. “Believing the Lie” is a worthy addition to the series. I sometimes feel, however, that George’s novels would benefit from a few less characters and subplots. This is only a very small criticism. I am glad to see that Thomas Lynley is finally starting to recover from the death of his beloved wife Helen. Like many Lynley fans I hope Thomas will find happiness again in a future Elizabeth Geroge thriller.
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