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 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. 

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. 

Kapitel 8

Guy war Frank Ouseleys erster Freund, ansonsten hatte er immer nur seinen Vater.

Auf der Beerdigung von Guy trifft Frank auf Bertrand (Nobby) Debiere. Sie fragen sich ob das Museum noch gebaut werden würde. Evtl. steht das im Testament.

Simon und Deborah sind auch anwesend und wollten sich ein Bild von den Beteiligten machen.

Kapitel 9

Deborah folgt Stephen, dem Sohn von Guys Geliebter Anais.

Er hält nicgts von deren Lebensmotto.

Paul will auch zur Beerdigung, aber er kommt zu spät, weil sein Bruder sein Rad demoliert hat und er es erst reparieren muss.

Simon spricht mit Ruth. Sie ist der Meinung China am Morgen des Mordes gesehen zu haben, wie sie Guy folgte.

Kapitel 10

Deborah und Simon machen sich auf Spurensuche am Tatort finden sie einen Ring.

Testamentseröffnung: Ruth ist überrascht. Guy hat das Testament vor kurzem ohne ihr Wissen geändert. Sein Bankvermögen erhalten zur Hälfte seine leiblichen Kunde zur anderen Hälfte Paul und ein weiteres Mädchen namens Cynthia.

Kapitel 11

Simon spricht mit Valerie Duffy. Auch sie ist der Meinung China gesehen zu haben. Den gefundenen Ring kennen sie und ihr Mann nicht.

Frank fährt zu Debriere um ihm mitzuteilen, dass aus dem Museum nichts wird.

Debiere ist der Meinung Guy hatte nie vorgehabt das Museum zu bauen.

Simon wird zu Ruth gerufen. Vorher bittet er Deborah den Ring zur Polizei bringen.

Kapitel 12

Simon besucht Ruth. Sie hat Guys Reisepass gefunden aus dem hervorgeht, dass er vor kurzem in Kalifornien war.

Margaret fährt zur Familie Moullin, deren Tochter Erbin von Guy ist, sie will sie abfinden, wenn sie auf das Erbe verzichtet. Ansonsten würde sie klagen. Der Vater des Mädchens geht nicht darauf ein.

Kapitel 13

Simon geht zur Polizei. Der Ring ist dort noch nicht angekommen. Deborah und Cherokee fragen nach einem Antikladen nach dem Ring. Der wurde dort vor 10 Tagen gekauft von einer Frau aus Kalifornien.

Frank teilt seinem Vater mit, daß aus dem Museum nicht wird. Der will daraufhin sich an die Presse wenden um etwas aus dem Krieg zu publizieren, was er eigentlich mit dem Museum machen wollte.

Kapitel 14

China gibt zu den Ring gekauft zu haben. Er sollte für ihren Ex-Freund Matt sein. Deborah will ihn trotzdem zur Polizei bringen.

Simon trifft sie auf seinem Weg von der Polizei und macht ihr Vorwürfe. Er bringt nun den Ring zur Polizei und sagt, dass China in gekauft hat.

Neues Ermittlungsergebnis: Guy hatte ein Opiat im Blut.

Wer hat es ihm wie verabreicht? Seine Trinkflasche wurde mit Meerwasser ausgespült.

Kapitel 15

Der Anwalt von Guy geht zu Paul und seinen Eltern und informiert sie über die Erbschaft.

Ruth erfährt vom Arzt, dass ihr Krebs nun im Endstadium ist.

Ausserdem stellt sich heraus, dass das Erbe wesentlich kleiner ist als gedacht, weil Guy Wertpapiere verkauf hat.

Wo ist das Geld?

Fortsetzung folgt...

This was my least favorite of George's reads. It went on forever. The two narrative styles did not fit. I already guessed at who did what and it was a long winding road to get there. The Webberly thing read as ridiculous after a while. Lynley is even more of an ass in this one. It felt like a lot of things happened without a lot of police work to get people to where they needed to go. 

I liked the book focusing on memory and what we remember as being accurate or false. But after a while I just didn't care. We have Lynley asked to investigate, when a former woman who is known by Webberly and other former New Scotland Yard forces is found dead by a hit and run. The woman's young daughter was drowned years ago and now after she is found dead people wonder what was it that caused her death. When more people connected to that case start being found dead, Lynley, Winston, and Havers are put on the case to figure out who is running people down.

Lynley of all people doesn't follow prior characterizations when he decides to hide something important on a case. Havers of all people points out to him how dumb this is. I maybe laughed a bunch of times considering the last book. St. James, Deborah, and Helen are barely in this one. They just seem to come on stage for Lynely's character and that's it. Winston's story-line was weird, I don't know what George was going for there, but it felt....off. I don't even know what else to say without spoilers. 

The writing was not good in this one I am sorry to say. George using a diary style format for a character told in the first person didn't work with the narrative style being told via third person point of view. Also, the diary style was way too long. It kept taking me out of the story. I started to skim after a while since I could guess what happened since George practically points a red arrow at the guilty party(ies). 

The flow was awful due to the narrative style. We also have a wrench thrown in via Lynley and Helen's marriage that had me dislike Lynley even more. At this point the man just wants a mannequin, not a wife. 

The ending left too many plot holes I assume will be resolved in the next book or the one after. I don't know...I started off enjoying these, but I noticed a drop off between this book and the last one. And I have been warned there is another one that is going to tick me off and the quality is going to be really bad. So I may stop here, I don't know.