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Careless in Red: A Novel | 
| Author: Elizabeth George
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $16.16
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 25
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 640
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 1.8
ISBN: 0061160873
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780061160875
ASIN: 0061160873
Publication Date: May 1, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new book. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling books online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20080512000933T
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Product Description
In her most eagerly anticipated novel yet, Elizabeth George brings back Scotland Yard's Thomas Lynley to investigate a ruthless crime. After the senseless murder of his wife, Detective Superintendent Thomas Lynley retreated to Cornwall, where he has spent six solitary weeks hiking the bleak and rugged coastline. But no matter how far he walks, no matter how exhausting his days, the painful memories of Helen's death do not diminish. On the forty-third day of his walk, at the base of a cliff, Lynley discovers the body of a young man who appears to have fallen to his death. The closest town, better known for its tourists and its surfing than its intrigue, seems an unlikely place for murder. However, it soon becomes apparent that a clever killer is indeed at work, and this time Lynley is not a detective but a witness and possibly a suspect. The head of the vastly understaffed local police department needs Lynley's help, though, especially when it comes to the mysterious, secretive woman whose cottage lies not far from where the body was discovered. But can Lynley let go of the past long enough to solve a most devious and carefully planned crime?
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Very disppointed May 11, 2008
I was looking forward to this book, since I liked all George's other books, except what Came before He Shot Her, which I only read halfway.
i have seen the series on TV and have easily been able to visualize the detectives whcih makes for much easier reading. This book was a great, far fetched rambling disappointment.
 More too much May 11, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I had been waiting for this book, liking George's stories but being unsure about her last. I'm afraid I'm disappointed. If you don't have enough tedious family bickering in your life, you'll like the book. If you want to learn much too much about peripheral characters, you'll like this book. If you're less interested in a good story than in rather bizarre characters, you'll like this book. George hasn't imploded quite the way Patricia Cornwell did, but she's getting close.
 Intense, disturbing thriller proves that Elizabeth George is back May 11, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
After my disappointment with Elizabeth George's previous two novels, I was a bit concerned when the next book in this ongoing series, Careless in Red was announced. But in having gamely read her series, and knowing that sometimes an author will go off on a tangent, I decided to give this one a chance. If it failed, well, I could always go back to the earlier novels of the series, and leave it at that.
Thomas Lynley, aristocrat and Scotland Yard detective, has retreated to the wilds of the Cornish coast to cope with the loss of his beloved wife and unborn child. He has deliberately cut himself off from everyone he knows, heading off to a future that even he can't comprehend. But the real world is about to intrude and shatter his illusions.
A rock climber has fallen to his death in a remote cove, and unfortunately for Lynley, he's the one who discovers the body. Almost at the same time, the owner of the nearby cottage, Daidre Trahair, returns as he is breaking into her home, and together they report the death. The downside to all of this is that it presents both of them as potential subjects.
For Santo Kerne has been murdered, and as with a good thriller, there's plenty of potential criminals here. Santo was an energetic young surfer, mad for women, and still able to exercise a great deal of charm -- enough to where it's just odd that anyone would kill him.
And the local police chief, DI Bea Hannaford, has plenty of problems of her own. From an ex-husband who is also a police officer, to a teenage son that fill of fire and rebellion, and an assistant who makes mere incompetence look good -- she's not a happy woman. Especially when she finds out who Lynley is.
The victim's family are also not much of a treat either. They've been renovating a dinosaur of an Edwardian hotel, seeking to lure the tourists with promising adventures in the wild splendours of Cornwall, but money is tight, and when Ben Kerne's wife, Dellen, is less than stable, it threatens to bring back a lot of family secrets.
Especially when it seems that Ben Kerne was involved in a very similar death some decades earlier...
I have to say, Elizabeth George is back with this novel. There's plenty of details, an ingeneous use of the colour red, and the fraught relationships here are stretched so tight that they hum with tension. Which is a real plus. Right up to the final pages, the story keeps at a very tight pace, and I found myself reading well into the night, wanting to know just what happens next.
Fans of Barbara Havers may be disappointed that she doesn't appear until partway through the novel, but she is always a treat to watch in action, and she doesn't miss a beat in this one. Especially when she is working with Bea Hannaford, the two of them in a wicked variation of good cop/bad cop.
The exotic names and locals of the Cornish countryside add a very rich flavour to the story. Another plus are the use of sports such as surfing and rock climbing. It's an England that we're familiar with, but not quite.
But naturally, where Ms. George excells is in the internal worlds of her characters. This time, the one that really takes center stage is Thomas Lynley himself. Mentally fragile, adrift, the reader is treated to a very new and fresh look at a character that has appeared in previous novels as someone clever and forthright, seemingly unable to break. It works here, and works well. The relationship that he develops with Daidre is fascinating to watch, and we get to see just how human he is under the cool exterior of a posh swell.
I was really taken by surprise by this one. The story was tightly written and compelling, with the author plotting and drawing the reader into this story of families and communities tied together by secrets and old conflicts. The theme of family ties and the tenuous and rather tricky love between fathers and sons are explored. What I did like was that George is not at all shy about looking at the uglier side of human emotions and motivations, and she uses them to great effect to create this moody thriller.
Happily recommended, and a must-read for any fans of the series. Four and a half stars rounded up to five.
Disappointed in Red May 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
There's too much character development for characters that I could care less about in this novel, and very little of the characters that drew me to this series in the first place. Where are Deborah and St. James?? What in the world was up with the notion that Havers could be slightly in love with Lynley? Helen's been dead how long, and Lynley is already drawn to another woman? I hope Tommy's grief march across England takes him back to his friends, and involves all of them in whatever mystery he solves next. The novels were best when Helen, Tommy, Deborah, and St. James worked together...the balance of their personal livss with the mysteries made Eliabeth George novels a must read for me. I would much rather have read about the characters that I have come to love over the years than some of the characters in this book who seemed totally unnecessary to the story like the teenager who wants to be a nun. I couldn't wait for this book to come out. After reading it, unfortunately, I can wait for the next one.
Seeing Red May 10, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Having read everything Ms. George has written, fiction and nonfiction, I am a fan. I bought both the Kindle and the hardback editions of Careless in Red in order to read the new novel quickly and also to own a hardback for Ms. George to autograph when she comes to our small town for a writer's conference in late May.
I am not a fan of this new novel. Granted most characters are believable and in the case of DI Hannaford darn right laudable, but the characters I most wanted fleshed out were merely the bare bones Ms. George used to hook long time readers into a largely sociological study of adolescent angst and midlife crisis set amongst British surfers and oversexed matrons. Even the smattering of antiquated vocabulary did little to earn my interest. (Although I do tip my hat to Ms. George's literary recognition of her move to western Washington State.)
If readers want to delve again into the lives of Lynley and Havers or if they want a complex whodunit, they'll be disappointed by Careless in Red. I confess to feeling more cheated by this entry in the Lynley series than by its predecessor. What Came Before He Shot Her can stand alone and may be appreciated as a deserved writing detour for the author of an otherwise satisfying British mystery series. Careless in Red continues down a path away from the original series and readers who have waited patiently for the reappearance of the author's central characters will be left wondering if Ms. George has left Sir Thomas by the wayside for good and all.
Ms. George has written of the differences between her serial mysteries and those of Agatha Christie. Ms. George reveals on her website that she chose to write about the development of her characters rather than engage in a "mental game" with readers. Ms. Christie's characters are "frozen in time" whereas Ms. George's characters will grow and change. Perhaps that is why I have found this particular novel so lacking. Lynley has been frozen on that terrible doorstep for George's readers for years now. Nothing new is revealed in the current novel that couldn't have been easily imagined by any devoted reader. That is the real failure of this novel. Ms. George has departed once too often from her own style to suit the devoted fan.
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