I picked this up at a used book shop during our aborted Christmas travels; having spent time in the Lake District, specifically, the towns of Windermere, Bowness, and Ableside that this story is set in, it appealed to me instantly.

Alas, it was no more than a drab average.  The characters didn't know what they wanted to be: the MC tells an inspector at the beginning she's moved to Windermere after her divorce, that she was childless and insisted that there were "compensations".  By the end of the book she's barely coping with the stillborn birth she had 2 years before.  Coping and repression are likely, of course, but they aren't part of of the narrative, so the reader is left with no grasp of this MC.  The Inspector is either attractive and friendly or greasy-haired and antagonistic.  The MC's mother is supposed to be a hippy, but acts more like a criminal attorney; I never once got the impression she liked her daughter.  The bride of the story is either flaky, naive and needs to be protected, or a headstrong woman who is the only one that can steer her much older husband's life.  Flip-flop.

The elements of the plot were interesting, but the plot itself wasn't anything special.  The motivation was pathetic and unbelievable, given the characters, and the murderer pretty obvious after about half-way.  

The setting was what I'd hoped for, at least.  My memories of the Lake District are still vivid, and I loved the area, so 're-visiting' it through the book kept me picking it back up.  This is the first in a series all set here, and while weak, not so bad that should I come across another one at a used book shop, I'd probably pick it up.

I need a great book to make up for my last reading experience. I also feel like re-reading the Wimsey stories in order, this time including the short stories, which I've so far neglected or rather saved up for special circumstances. I guess, a pandemic should qualify as "special circumstances".

In any case, a visit to Duke's Denver is on the cards.

... and of course:

(1) like last year, when rolling shortly before midnight my time, there's no such thing as "a quick roll" but I'm blessed with a double, and

(2) no sooner did I DNF a book set in South America that roll #2-a roll sends me straight to the Patagonia Express.  Sigh.  I'm putting a Christie on reserve for roll #2-b just in case.

I got my hour of vacation time approved and registered for the virtual book club meeting. They only had 3 of their 20 slots filled when I registered, so I'm feeling less bad about taking a spot from a resident of the area.

I choose Binary Witness as my book for the meeting because I was pretty sure I wouldn't manage to finish anything in time. A reread seemed like the best option. And it's looking like I was right, because I'm only about halfway through my relisten. I may switch to my paper copy sometime tonight.

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.