Yikes. This was bad. I don't even know what else to say. I mean...you have Lynley wanting a sexual relationship or something with a woman who he meets not more than 2 months after his wife was murdered. Also, what was George even thinking with fridging Helen? The murder story-line was interesting, but the resolution was a freaking let-down. I don't even know what else to say here. This book felt like a waste of time. 

"Careless in Red" finds Thomas Lynley walking in Cornwall. He has been on his own for 6 weeks at the start of this story trying to outrun memories of his dead wife. When he comes to a cliff he sees a body and finds himself thrust in the middle of a murder investigation. The local investigator calls on Lynley to investigate a woman who is hiding something. Lynley eventually calls up Havers who is sent to Cornwall to help, but to also bring Lynley back to New Scotland Yard.

I got nothing on Lynley. He's like a shadow of his former self and his whatever it was with the vet made zero sense and actually made me despise him. 

Havers was great and the only reason why I gave this 1 star.

The local investigator had a whole backstory that I did not care about at all. So did the vet and it made zero sense when we get to her reveal. It was so dumb and I just threw up my hands. 

I can't say much about the other people in this story, the lot of them had a lot of issues and there's not really anyone that I ended up liking. At one point I wondered how everyone in this story was so miserable and unhappy. Some of the characters, read as caricatures. 

The writing was dry and the flow was awful. 

The ending was a letdown. Readers and the police know who did it, but I really wish the book had ended differently. Lynley holds a massive resolution to a murder case that occurred 25 years earlier and it made no sense that he didn't tell anyone about it, or at least to tell what he knew to the person behind this murder. The whole book felt like a rough draft. 

I should finish up with "My Life in France" today. I plan on moving onto "Golden in Death" next and hope to start "Careless in Red" on Saturday and finish it up by Sunday.

I am ready to just go hide with books this weekend!

I had some roof work done (caulking, sealing, new nails) but the pictures showed I need to have more work done up there. Thankfully nothing that is pressing, but I am annoyed that when I bought this house back in 2012 I got a new roof and supposedly new fixtures up there, but it looks like it needs spruced up a bit. 

How is everyone's #FridayReads going?

I don't even know what to say here. I think I am still just ticked. George had too much happening this book and I really think that she would have been better off just sticking with Lynley and Havers third person points of views. Adding in Winston, the bad guy, a woman, and several others started making me twitchy. With the book setting up a showdown with Lynley's new superior and then the book jumping to something totally unexpected (and made no damn sense) makes me wonder how this series continued after this. George does not seem to care for married couples (see St. James and Deborah) and she even showed that Lynley was hesitant after marrying Helen. It's so weird to me to just basically see that all of the people are 100 percent exhausting and then there's murder thrown in to make you want to bang your head a thousand times.

"With No One As Witness" follows Lynley on the trail of a serial killer. Lynley is also dealing with Webber's replacement, Hiller, who has an ax to grind against Havers and wants to use Winston as the "face" of the police force due to the serial killer targeting mixed race boys. George though not satisfied with this throws in some other things going on besides this.

Havers is dealing with getting her neighbor's child in trouble and fighting with the father about how he treats her. I seriously did not care about this story-line at all.

Winston is dealing with a well earned promotion, but knowing it comes with a lot of strings attached. He is also still thinking about the woman, Yas, he met in one of the prior books. The whole thing read too stalky for me so I was not happy about this story-line.

Lynley and Helen are preparing for the birth of their baby and Lynley is dealing with the machinations of Hiller. Hiller just sucks and there's no other word for it. Lynley is doing what he can to make sure Havers can get her rank back, but with Hiller throwing up roadblocks with journalists and a profiler, it doesn't look like it's happening.

Of course St. James and Deborah are in this and I still dislike Deborah. No she didn't do anything wrong in this one, but I just can't stand this character.

The writing was a chore to get through. I felt my attention wandering a lot. And then we had a plot twist thrown in that made me feel like I was reading a totally different book. And then it didn't work at all as a whole.

The ending...yeah. I got no words. 

I don’t even know what to say. What a mess. Apparently everyone in this series must be miserable. I could t even concentrate on the murder investigations after George threw an unexpected death in this one. 

Can you call it an Inspector Lynley novel when he is barely in it? I think he has three lines. Maybe four. Following Deborah and Simon was painful. Also Deborah is just the worst. I got nothing anymore on her. I swear George must take pleasure of having her being okay in the first couple of books to turning her into a selfish brat. I don't get why anyone wants to deal with her.

"A Place of Hiding" follows Deborah who is reeling for a less than fantastic photography exhibit. She rails on Simon cause of course. Then a knock at the door brings an old friend from her time in California, Cherokee River. Cherokee has come to ask for help since his sister, China, River has been accused of murdering a wealthy elderly man, Guy Brouard. Cherokee came into contact with Guy when he was asked to deliver a package with the request that two people bring it. Cherokee cannot understand why anyone thinks that his sister did the murder since she has no reason to since she just met Guy a few weeks back.

Deborah being the worst, wants to go and investigate even though the local Guernsey police are dealing with it. Simon goes along to help and the two of them are doing their own unofficial investigation. Deborah doesn't listen and wants to show Simon she's not a child (really girl? really?) and then goes off and makes matters worse it seems as the book goes on. Deborah starts to see how China and even Cherokee view her and starts to wonder about her friendships with the two of them.

Simon is Simon, focusing on the evidence and being logically and also rightfully angry at Deborah because of some of the actions she took.

There is a cast of thousands in this book. It was hard to track everyone. Let's just say everyone had a motive to kill Guy and he sucked. I won't reveal who the killer was and why, but I have to say it was an awesome reveal and I loved what it meant. 

The writing is just jumbled in this one. So was the flow. I gave up trying to keep certain people straight and started skimming in some parts. 

That said, the ending once again seemed a bit flat. I wish it had ended on Simon and Deborah and not a secondary character who I forgot was in the book at that point.