Payment in Blood (Inspector Lynley)

This is my first Elizabeth George murder mystery and though it dates from 1989, it reads very here and now. She does an excellent job creating unique characters, each with a special quirk or two. The story has lots of twists without getting overly confusing and she didn't try and tie everything up in a perfect bow at the end. One still feels satisfied, however, with the conclusion.

More complex story and character development than the average "who done it." Causes me to feel more empathy for the primary characters, because they and their emotions are described well and in such detail.

Character development is very good. She is clearly a more mature author than in the first novel (which was also good, by the way). The depth of each character and the detail, which is so characteristic of her writing is a pleasure to read, in the same way as P.D. James.

I have not long been a reader of Elizabeth George but in short time I have read every one of her books. I so highly recommend her that I would like to take an ad out for the best writer, of mystery fiction, I've read. I don't care which book you pick up, it will be excellent. And, each book has a surprise ending. I challenge anyone to know what will eventually happen anywhere from page one to 7/8th the way through! No stop, erudite entertainment.

The scenario for this murder story is so contrived that it soon loses credibility. The characters are placed in a remote Scottish country house/hotel for very far-fetched reasons and this sense of artificiality continues to the end, by which time we don't really care who the murderer is.

Loved this book - showed another side of Inspector Lynley.
Well written, as usual. I love Elizabeth George's writing, observations and details. You have to wait to the last minute to see who really "did it"...

I cannot recommend this book to anyone. In order to follow the plot, it is necessary to follow the sexual exploits, the lies, and the wrongdoings of way too many misguided people.
I was interested in this book because I had read a previous Elizabeth George mystery, and I was interested in the evolving relationship between Lynley and Barbara. However, I no longer care.
I will not be reading any more books by Elizabeth George!

British detective thrillers, whether in novels, films or on PBS Masterpiece Mystery, are sometimes mystifying to non-Brits in an odd way.

For starts, there are all those acronyms: CID, MI5 MI6, all the letters before the police officers’ names. Does everyone know that MI stands for military intelligence? Or that the CID is Crime Investigation Division? Or that the ranks of police officers ascend from PC or DC (police or detective constable) through DS (detective sergeant) to DCI (detective chief inspector)? Calling a DS a DC might cause offense.

If you are reading, as I am, Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley books, you have the additional problem of figuring out which Lord or Lady is up to whichever mischief, since sometimes the characters’ given names are used and at other times they are called by their titles. Lord Asherton, for instance, is DCI Lynley, Tommy to his friends.

Here is the cast of characters for Payment in Blood, the second work in George’s Inspector Lynley books—very helpful when, on page 300 of some 430, you can’t remember who Denton is. Of course, you might prefer just to read the book or watch the video and assume that eventually everything will be understandable.

1. DCI Thomas Lynley, Eighth Earl of Asherton.
2.DC Barbara Havers, demoted from DS, Lynley’s partner. Lives with her parents.
3.Lady Helen Clyde, daughter of the Tenth Earl of Hesfield (ongoing love interest).
4.Simon Allcourt St. James, forensic scientist.
5. Deborah Cotter St. James, photographer, his wife, daughter of his valet.
6. Francesca Gerrard, widow, owner of mansion on Loch Achiemore, Scotland.
7. Philip, her late husband, buried on an island in the Loch.
8.Stuart Rintoul, Lord Stinhurst, “Midas of the Theater”, Francesca’s brother.
9.Marguerite, Countess of Stinhurst, his wife.
10.Alec Rintoul, deceased, their son, loved by No. 12.
11.Elizabeth Rintoul, their fortyish daughter.
12.Joy Sinclair, playwright (deceased), sister of No. 13, cousin of No. 19, former lover of No. 16.
13.Irene Sinclair, former actress, previously married to No. 16.
14.Joanna Ellacourt, famous actress, married to No. 15.
15.David Sydeham, her husband and manager.
16.Robert Gabriel, famous actor, formerly married to No. 13, now sleeping with No. 12 and many others.
17.Geoffrey Rintoul (deceased), brother of No. 8, grave discovered in odd place.
18.Jeremy Vinney, journalist, drama critic for the Times.
19. Rhys Davies-Jones, theatrical director, presently lover of No. 3. Prime suspect.
20.Gowan Kilbride, handyman at the mansion of No. 6.
21. Mary Agnes Campbell, maid at No. 6.
22.Hannah Darrow, deceased, subject of a book by No. 12.
23.John Darrow, publican, her husband.
24.Teddy Darrow, their son.

English police: Chief Superintendent David Hiller; New Scotland Yard Superintendent Malcolm Webberley, Lynley’s superior; DC Raymond Plater (Mildenhall), D. C. Winston Nkata.

Scottish police: DI Ian Macaskin of the Strathclyde CID; DC Kevin Lonan.

Military Intelligence: William Vassall, Sir Kenneth Willingate, Sir Andrew Higgins.

Servants: Denton, Lynley’s valet. Caroline Shepherd, Lady Helen’s maid. Cotter, valet to St. James (No. 4) and father of Deborah St. James (No. 5).

I've always lke Lynley mysteries. Since I've read themore recent ones, I knew that Helen eventually gets killed with Lynley's unborn
child. It was strange to read an earlier story with Lynley and Helen just beginning to see each other again. The fact that his hair is blond is disconcerting, as on TV he's always portrayed as brunette!! I felt they emphsized his rich upbringiings too much in this story. Once I begin an Inspector Lynley novel, it's hard to put down, but they are SO long that I have to!

Nancy Wikoff Leetch

Elizabeth George is my new favorite author...I understand a new book will be out soon. This book, Payment in Blood, is #3 of probably 20 so I must get to reading before the new one comes out. BTW the books should be read in order to make more sense, Each book builds on the previous book. Daniel Silva's books should be read in order too.

Well, this is the second of her Lynley series and some of the exaggerated pompousness of what a yank thinks Brits talk like has been winnowed out. but the author still is tone deaf and almost insultingly stereotyping when she tries to do a) Scots accents, b)working class accents, and c) a blackBritish accents which btw IS NOT the same as African American. Jaysus! When you do an accent in writing you indicate with a word or two and let the reader imagine the rest! Hers is word for word, yank imaginary, and in the case of teh Black Brit verging on insulting. Cripes! learn to write!

Thomas Lynley, at 34 years of age, is a detective inspector with the CID at New Scotland Yard. He is very good at his job and well respected amongst his peers. And, in this book, that is the start of his troubles. For Thomas Lynley is a peer. He is Lord Asherton, the eighth Earl of Asherton, to be exact. And his presence is commanded by the upper echelon of the Yard when Stuart Rintoul, Lord Stinhurst, sixteenth or seventeenth Earl of Stinhurst, finds himself at the scene of a murder.

Lord Stinhurst is a prominent London producer and has contracted with Joy Sinclair, a renowned true crime writer, to write an original play for his troupe, a group that has been working together for almost 20 years. Script approved, Stinhurst has Sinclair, his main troupe and a media writer assemble at his widowed sister’s estate in Scotland.

Accompanying the leading lady is her husband/agent. And Stinhurst has brought his wife and spinster daughter. The director has also brought along a guest, the daughter of yet another earl. To complicate matters, the supporting actress is divorced from the lead actor. And she is also the sister of Joy Sinclair. But the sister and Sinclair are estranged, since Sinclair had an affair with the sister’s husband, that leading actor, precipitating their divorce. On top of all this, Sinclair was the fiancée of Stinhurst’s son prior to his death. And let’s not forget the widowed sister, the maid and the handyman. Needless to say, tensions are high in this soap opera.

Then Joy Sinclair announces that she has made a few revisions to the script. When the group begins the read-through, they discover very quickly that the “revisions” constitute a full-plot rewrite. Sinclair, with her true crime bent, has altered the original script to expose some very nasty skeletons in the Stinhurst family closet. The read-through devolves into a brawl, after which all parties retreat to parts unknown within the mansion. The next morning Joy Sinclair is found dead, a dirk driven through her neck, skewered to the mattress.

Enter Thomas Lynley, ordered to investigate in a jurisdiction in which he has minimal authority and in a jurisdiction that has not officially requested Yard assistance. While this situation confuses Lynley, nothing prepares him for what happens next. Upon arriving at the estate, he finds out that Lady Helen Clyde, one of his closest friends and the woman he has come to love, has spent the night in the room next door to that of the murdered woman, having begged off spending the weekend with him. He then finds out that she is actually spending the weekend with the director of the play, Rhys Davies-Jones.

Lynley goes off the rails, betrayed in more ways than one. For the first time in his career, he is determined to force the evidence to fit his needs instead of letting the evidence lead what way it will. And his need is to make that director, that man who slept with Helen, that man whose fingerprints are on one of the keys to Joy Sinclair’s room, the murderer of Joy Sinclair.

Elizabeth George has written a mystery that has an entire cast of suspects hating not only the victim but each other. As the sub-plots twist and twine, we are hard pressed to decide just who murdered the woman. But one thing we do know, regardless of the evidence discovered or the theories advanced, is that the director, Rhys Davies-Jones, is not the murderer. He cannot be or the author will have destroyed our main protagonist morally, psychologically and professionally. Lynley simply cannot be allowed to win this fight, not this way. And Barbara Havers, his sergeant, with Simon St. James, is determined to save him from himself, even if they have to lie to him to do it.

First published in 1989, with a storyline that occurs in 1988, this book, at the time of this review, exposes us to a 25-year cultural difference. Computers exist in government agencies but only word processors are in private hands. There is no Internet to speed up research nor are there cell phones to ease communication difficulties.

And the legal procedures are vastly different than what we experience today. In our current society, no question is too invasive; no privacy is afforded in a murder investigation. But that’s now, not 1989 when this story was written. So when you read Lady Helen’s reactions to Lynley’s very pointed questions at the beginning of the novel, she is not being a drama queen. She is reacting within the cultural norm of her day when women, particularly titled women, were rarely asked about the details of their sex lives in front of witnesses.

While the murder mystery itself is both convoluted and masterfully crafted, it is primarily a vehicle for the character growth of Lynley, Havers and Lady Helen. As Lynley and Lady Helen spiral downward into self-recrimination and depression, Havers finds her way upward, past her prejudices and the chip on her shoulder. She becomes the glue and the driving force that saves Lynley from being crushed by the politics of the Yard. And just as Lynley and Lady Helen must choose to face some harsh realities before they can face each other, Havers must choose between her career and her mentor.

This paperback edition is 413 pages of small print and tightly spaced lines. That makes it a long read. However, the intellectual and emotional workouts that are fashioned on those pages make it worth the time.

Elizabeth George is among the finest of mystery writers, British or American, living and dead. However, it's a good thing my introduction to her work didn't begin with this title. Not that the story lacks suspense and plenty of twists, nor that the characters don't display delicacy and complexity. It's that most of them have such adolescent interior motives and conflicts (notably Lady Helen, the Inspector himself, and the villain) that it costs the whole story basic verisimilitude. Also, 'though no doubt it's British etiquette, referring to Helen Clyde as "Lady Helen" (after all, just a mortal like everyone else and a pretty darned childish one given how she inserts herself into the surveillance and her downright silly effect on its outcome) becomes terribly cloying. In short, these characters are offputting. The book, thankfully, is not representative of George's standard.

I was really absorbed by Lynley 1 and the amazing writing of Elizabeth George. However I'm forcing myself to read this Lynley 2 which is a knock-off of Colonel Mustard with the candlestick. George still writes it well but there are only two pages of oh-dear upset the applecart in the the first half of the book which is where I'm crawling along in first gear. Hopefully it will pick up as time goes on or I may have to switch to the video series which I'm sure has added seasoning to get our attention.

I really enjoyed reading this...it moves fast & the mysteries (there is more than one) in the book are compelling. However, like another reviewer noted, Lynley all of a sudden has an obsession for his long-time gal-pal, Helen....where in the previous book it was a longing for Deborah, his former love now married to a friend/colleague. Now Helen is "The One" ?? Did I miss something somewhere? Also, his getting so freaked out & p.o'd because she's involved with someone else doesn't really ring true for Lynley's otherwise cool, calm & collected persona.
Another drawback for me was the huge cast of similar characters....it was difficult to keep everyone straight...especially since a few of them had the same characteristics/personalities. I was disappointed in the ending somewhat because I would have liked to have known the various characters' reactions to who the murderer was (most of these "extra" protagnanists/antagonists just disappeared at the end).
Regardless, I love George's writing....Havers & Lynley are interesting "heroes". It was fun to learn more about Havers, her home life, and see her emotions & personality fleshed out. I continue to look forward to catching up with the series (I'm new to George & Lynley).