First of all, let me say that I adore Elizabeth George's writing, her characters, her plotting...the whole package. Second of all, I want to love this book. I knew going in that it wasn't going to feature ANY of the the "regular" cast of characters (as it turns out, most do appear, each for just a page or two towards the end), so I wasn't surprised to be reading about a family of mixed-race children who are dumped with their aunt. Their mother is in a mental hospital and their dad was killed several years ago. Normally, once I start reading George, it's all I do. She's that good; she makes me obsessive. I rush through my real life so I can get back to finding out what happens next in the book.
In the story of Joel, Ness and Toby I've only managed 79 pages over the past week. Virtually all of those pages have been a struggle. The story is depressing beyond words, and since we know how it ends--with Helen being shot at her front door--there's a gloomy pall over everything.
In frustration, yesterday I scanned the last 3 or so chapters, hoping that there was some kind of closure, or an uplifting ending of some kind. OK, I wasn't hoping, I was pretty sure there wouldn't be...and I was right. It ends as it began: hopeless and sad beyond words. There are no solutions, there is no happiness, there is no light in this novel. The cover, in that way, is misleading: it should be dark gray and murky instead of white.
Having gotten this background out of her system, I hope George moves forward with Lynley et al. in her next book. I don't begrudge her doing this novel at all; I even give her kudos for trying to address the "other side of the coin" in the depiction of the desperate emotional poverty from which this particular murder derives.
This book is written as well as her usual fare--I find myself becoming attached to these characters--but I just can't stand to read something so unceasingly bleak.
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