What Came Before He Shot Her
A Page-Turning Mystery Featuring Thomas Lynley, now appearing on BBC1 and iPlayer
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4.3 • 12 Ratings
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- £6.49
Publisher Description
AS MENTIONED ON THE REST IS ENTERTAINMENT PODCAST!
The twelfth novel in the bestselling series that inspired BBC's Lynley
The wife of New Scotland Yard's Thomas Lynley has been gunned down in the street outside her home. Under arrest for the crime is a twelve-year-old boy, Joel Campbell.
What possible motive could he have? What chain of events could have led such a child from the housing estates of North Kensington to the elegant streets of Belgravia with such deadly intent?
The answer to these questions is a complex mixture of fate and circumstance. Abandoned by his parents, Joel and two siblings are dumped on the doorstep of his aunt's house. He does his best to look out for his family, but something clearly isn't right with his younger brother, Toby.
And when Joel desperately makes a Faustian pact, the devil comes to collect.
Praise for What Came Before He Shot Her
'A very powerful novel'
Kate Mosse
'It shifts the way you look at things - I was completely drawn into this world I knew nothing about and I'm full of admiration'
Sarah Harrison
'A tour de force from a writer flexing her muscles as she's never done before . . . Absolutely riveting'
Entertainment Weekly
'Why haven't I read Elizabeth George before? Maybe because someone told me she was a serious crime writer, and I listen to thrillers to escape, not to think. All this will change; she's brilliant'
Sue Arnold, Guardian
'George's best since her debut. Read it and weep'
Kirkus
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bestseller George (With No One as Witness) departs from the usual investigative nuts and bolts of her Thomas Lynley and Barbara Havers mystery thrillers with this searing examination of the lives of one horribly dysfunctional family and their immigrant London milieu. Switching uncomfortably at times from dialogue in a rough patois to exposition in a language both formal and sociological, George delivers a stinging indictment of a society unable to respond effectively to the needs of its poorer citizens. Kendra Osborne, a 40-year-old woman with modest ambitions and plans to achieve them, has no idea how to cope when her mother "dumps" her sister's three children on her doorstep and heads for Jamaica. Fifteen-year-old Ness, 11-year-old Joel and seven-year-old Toby each have a wealth of problems exacerbated by their mixed-race heritage. It's no accident that George refers to Dickens on the first page of this earnest but perhaps overly didactic novel, which focuses on the burdens borne by Joel as he's swept by forces he can neither understand nor control into a fatal encounter. 8-city author tour.
Customer Reviews
Informative.
Even though the outcome is known, the way the story is written has tension and drama that is absolutely gripping. Elizabeth George is a brilliant writer.