Customer Reviews

The Inspector Lynley Mysteries 2 - A Suitable Vengeance

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This is a well-acted, interesting, and engrossing episode. The events are presented in a lineal fashion and are easy to follow. Inspector Lynley decides to celebrate his engagement to Helen at his mother's spacious mansion. The guests include his brother and his girl friend and Lynley's cousin and his wife. While the weekend was meant to be enjoyable, two events mar it. First, Lynley is unable to get over seeing his mother have sexual intercourse with his father's doctor while his father is dying of cancer some twenty years ago. Lynley left home and never had a good relationship with his mother or the doctor afterwards. The doctor remained a friend of his mother. He repeatedly asked her to marry him, but she always refused because of Lynley's attitude toward him and the hope that she can be reconciled with her son. The doctor is one of the house guests. When Lynley left home, his younger brother began using drugs, and is still using them.

The second event is the murder of a man who is a friend of the family and an invitee for the weekend. The local police officer decides to arrest a person who Lynley is convinced did not commit the murder. Lynley needs to find out why the man was murdered and who did it. He also needs to decide if his behavior toward his mother and the doctor is childish.

The movie adaptation is pretty good, except for a couple of glaring changes which will confuse those who have read the novel. (If you haven't read the book, no problem.) The book is a prequel, set in the days when Tommy Lynley was engaged to Deborah (and she has not yet admitted her love for Simon, nor Simon his love for her.) The movie is set to be contemporary with the other stories, with Tommy engaged to Helen. Other than that confusion, the adaptation is well done, capturing Tommy's tension with his mother and her gentleman friend. And, of course, there is the obligatory murder with its investigation and aftermath.