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265 of 283 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Lot Better than George's Two Previous Books, April 22, 2010
After the hugely disappointing "What Came Before He Shot Her" and a less disappointing but still quite boring "Careless in Red," this new book of the Lynley-Havers series is a welcome return to the components that have made George so popular with so many readers. I will not retell the plot of the book but I would like to mention some of the things that make me like this novel, even though I definitely do not consider it one of George's best works. For one, this novel is set for the most part in London. In my opinion, London-based novels by George are a lot better than the ones set elsewhere. Barbara Havers, Winston Nkata, and Thomas Lynley are all present here. Lynley is a bit boring in this book but Havers never disappoints. Her relationship with her neighbors keeps developing in interesting ways. There are some very interesting characters in this novel. The mystery the novel revolves around interested me a lot. You really get into the characters and begin to care about what happened. There are unexpected twists of the plot, and the character psychology is spot on. On the negative side, George still doesn't give up on the type of social criticism that she attempted (and failed) to deliver in "What Came Before He Shot Her." This makes the entrance into the book a little plodding. So brace yourself for the first 40 pages or so, they are somewhat dry and boring. Don't give up, though, it does get a lot better after the introductory part. Overall, George seems well on the way to the kind of writing that made her such a fantastic mystery writer and that she sadly abandoned in the past couple of years. This book isn't perfect yet, but it has most of the ingredients that we have come to love in George's novels.
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176 of 189 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Improvement, April 23, 2010
In spite of my dislike of her last novel, I purchased and read "This Body of Death" immediately. I am pleased to say that this a a great improvement and reminds me why I have liked so much of what she has written over the years. It is not, however, a great mystery novel. Why? I think the biggest "problem" with the book is tone. The story seems to be told by Elizabeth George coolly looking down from a mountain top. Somehow all passion is missing from this tale, engaging as it is. It is as if everything and everyone in the novel is given equal weight. The many characters are interesting, yet they are all somehow flat. One never gets inside of any of their heads. One sees them from the outside. There is no main character. Lynley is merely one of many. Havers is merely one of many. Deborah, thank goodness, makes only a brief albeit important appearance. The puppet master moves her pawns around the board. Somehow they don't "live" on the page. The device of interspersing the sociologist's report on a long-ago child murder was puzzling even though the reader is aware that it will eventually be linked with the main story. Without giving away any plot details, it does link and adds insight into why the story unfolded as it did and why some characters acted as they did. Yet, there is an awful lot of it and it casts a long miserable shadow. I kept wondering if it was all going to tie into the sad and, for many of us, unforgivable murder of Helen. I do wish that George would give heavy-handed sociology a rest. Sometimes she makes me long for the simplicity and black-and-white worldview of Agatha Christie. That sin, misery and stupidity roll down through the years and beget more of the same is not a surprise to anyone who thinks about these things--and mystery readers very often do. Good news: Lynley is returning to life. Havers has at least one new outfit that seems to work. There is an intriguing new character who I am sure will be back in the next book, vodka bottles in her purse and all.
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49 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Infringement on private tragedy mars this complex tale, August 6, 2010
This book has received the full spectrum of reviewers' impressions, and I will not add to the confusion by attempting to reduce it. I will make a sole observation and criticism. The igniting event of "This Body of Death" is a toddler's abduction, torture-for-amusement, and murder by three pre-teen sociopathic slackers, described in horrifying, heartbreaking, and unnecessarily leisurely and graphic detail through the device of a sociopathologic analysis of the criminals by a PhD social worker. This dissertation is presented in installments as a prelude and a dozen or so interludes throughout the main story, which revolves around an entirely different murder. The chronology of this crime in relation to the main action is not made clear until the end, nor is its relevance to the plot made explicit until then. Savvy readers will twig to the connection when the ultimate disposition of the child's murderers is revealed, and sophisticated readers who ponder the connection may guess it before then if they think outside the box of linear chronology. Unsophisticated readers like me will smack their foreheads when they realize how much earlier they should have recognized the obvious. It's an entertaining and effective device, perfectly capturing the tone of plodding and precious social-workspeak. The criticism is that this episode is quite obviously based on the actual abduction, torture, and murder of a toddler named James Bulger in England in 1993. This crime, part of it caught on CCTV videotape, and the ensuing investigation, trial, and sentencing, caused a worldwide sensation for months, as well an intense controversy over the appropriate means of handling preteen murderers. Virtually all of the salient elements of the actual crime, including the toddler's abduction from a public shopping area while his parent's attention was momentarily diverted, the ages of the murderers and the victim, the critical role of CCTV footage in identifying the criminals, the sociopathic aspects of the boys' personalities, the sensationalism of the investigation, trial, and sentencing, and the boys' ultimate disposition, are imported more or less intact into George's novel. And yet the author and publisher have the amazing gall to make the baldfaced, patently ridiculous, and shockingly false standard disclaimer, and I quote, "The characters, incidents, and dialogue are PRODUCTS OF THE AUTHOR'S IMAGINATION..." and "ANY RESEMBLANCE to actual persons, living or dead, IS ENTIRELY COINCIDENTAL" (emphasis added). I guess it's enough just to say it's so, pretend it's so, and all will be fine. Apparently that would be the view of the publisher's doubtless expensively creative legal staff and of course George herself. I'm sure things are NOT fine with the anguished family of young James Bulger, and it rends the heart to imagine their feelings at having their personal tragedy callously appropriated to serve as the foundation for a murder novel by an author with a large and worldwide (including in the UK) readership and sales. What truly puzzles me is why George didn't call upon that demonstrably fertile imagination of hers referred to in the disclaimer, and simply invent an impersonal crime that would have provided the needed foundation for the main plot. Why trumpet the Bulger tragedy and inevitably (if unintentionally) renew the sorrow of that poor family, as well as risk casting public attention on them again? Are fiction plots that recast famous notorious events somehow more, I don't know, "relevant" and therefore saleable? This reeks of opportunism, of capitalizing on a sensational and still well-remembered crime. And of creative laziness, the conviction (against the ethos of the fiction writer) that one couldn't possibly have come up with anything as clever as real life--or real death. Everyone who signed off on the inclusion of this conceit, from George to her professional readers, her editor, the executives of HarperCollins Publishers, and the publisher's legal staff, should be publicly shamed. My enjoyment of Elizabeth George has been irredeemably crippled.
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