OPINION:
A BANQUET OF CONSEQUENCES: A LYNLEY NOVEL
By Elizabeth George
Viking, $28.95, 592 pages
This is a slow and solemn march though murder as only this author can tell it. There is more nastiness than mayhem among the small army of assembled characters and a degree of admiration is evoked for the ingenious method of disposing of a victim.
Elizabeth George replays familiar figures from her series of mysteries, including the irresistible Inspector Lynley, one of Scotland Yard’s resident aristocrats, and his unlikely teammate, the impossible yet effective Sgt. Havers. It is Lynley who comes to the aid of Havers in her battle with her boss, Superinendent Isabelle Ardley, a neurotic with a cache of airline miniatures of vodka in her purse and a brief previous passion for Lynley.
His faith in Havers is justified by her tenacity as an investigator and tested by her capacity for unpredictable behavior. The strange case of Clare Abbott and Caroline Goldacre is tailor made for Havers’ detective skills because much of it doesn’t make sense, including the use of sodium azide in toothpaste as the means of sudden death. Abbott is a celebrity feminist author and Goldacre has cast herself in the role of what used to be called a Girl Friday, a bossy boots who runs her employer’s world and lies about it. Between them there are secrets they don’t and can’t share which add up to mutual disaster. Goldacre’s life is further eomplicated by two husbands — one divorced, the other with a mistress and two sons, of whom one has committed suicide while the other is a neurotic wreck. The more you read about their mother’s treatment of them, the less you blame them. Caroline is a cruel and dreadful woman and her computer communications to Clare Abbott are chilling in what they reveal. Ms. George does an excellent job of characterizing what might be called refined wickedness in dialogue and her exchanges between her victims form the best part of her plot.
Cast in a more tragic but gentler role is Sharon, one of two victims in a lesbian rape and murder assault who is so stricken by what she saw and suffered that her constant companion is now Arlo, a service dog who is trained to soothe her frequent moments of terror. Sharon, who almost becomes the second victim of the toothpaste killer, takes comfort in the understanding and compassion of Lynley, who is haunted by the memory of how his wife Helen was shot to death on their doorstep.
This is undoubtedly one of Ms. George’s best mysteries, original in concept and fascinating in the breadth of its characters. Caroline Goldacre in particular is a gem of evil, around which others tend to cringe because much of her behavior is so plausible that it makes the truth about her past as difficult to accept as the brutality of her behavior toward the children she tortures. There is no question about the charm of Caroline which becomes especially frightening when you learn what lies beyond it as well as what she is prepared to do to get what she wants.
Lynley demonstrates his strength as a father figure to the willful Havers who has come to realize that she cannot win a war with Isabelle Ardrey who is determined to get rid of her by sending her to rural England. Only Lynley can save her. Havers, while remaining bloody-minded about what she thinks should be done to catch a criminal, is also increasingly aware that the price she will pay may be too high even for her. Lynley has become enamored of Daidre, an unusually independent woman involved in work with animals. She is independent to the point that while she will sleep with Lynley, what she sleeps on is a camp bed in the home she is more or less building single-handedly, and it is a significant turn in the relationship when he discovers one night that she has installed a real bed.
• Muriel Dobbin is a former White House and national political reporter for McClatchy newspapers and the Baltimore Sun.
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