A Great Deliverance

A Great Deliverance (1988) Elizabeth George

I’ve been out of sorts recently, and keep picking up books, reading a few pages, and then putting them back down, because they’re not what I’m in the mood for. Luckily (or perhaps unluckily) for me, Amazon provides endless recommendations, based upon other books you’ve read and enjoyed.

Thus, I stumbled upon Elizabeth George.

How had I missed reading her before? I have absolutely no idea. I’d heard the name, but somehow I’d managed never to come across her books. But this series fit right into the sweet spot of what I wanted–an established detective series that was highly rated, and had a good backlist, all of which tend to mean they’re more likely to be a good series (I know this is not a truth, those things do make it more likely).

A somewhat ugly case is passed onto Superintendent Webberly’s, and between the serial killer he’s already dealing with, the political problems of the case at hand, and interpersonal issues with some of his staff members, it’s likely that nothing is going to turn out well for his department.

And this is how Barbara Havers and Thomas Lindley end up going to Keldale to investigate a terrible murder.

We are several chapters into the book before we even meet Havers and Lindley. First we see the priest bringing the facts of the case to Scotland Yard, then the Superintendent, trying to figure out what to do with the case. Considering that Havers has a history of being unable to work with other members of the CID, and her vocal dislike of Lindley, things don’t look particularly good for this case to be solved quickly and easily.

And that doesn’t even go into the political considerations between the different police jurisdictions.

Meanwhile, a teen girl is accused of the grisly murder of her father, and since the discovery of the body, she has said nothing other than, “I did it. I’m not sorry.”

There is a lot going on in this book. We have the politics between the different departments, we have the tension between Havers and Lindley, we have Lindley’s personal life, Haver’s personal life, and Lindley’s best friend St. James is on his honeymoon, and the history between the two men is yet another mystery.

Surprisingly, for me, the multiple threads worked very well. Part of it was because I knew why the man had been murdered, so that took a lot of the surprise out of the story. Would the resolution of that mystery been a surprise two decades ago when the book was written? Perhaps.

Regardless, it didn’t affect my enjoyment of the book, as there were so many other mysteries going on.

Now I’m looking forward to the next books in the series.
Rating: 7/10

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