A Traitor to Memory

Every once in a while I like to read a good old-fashioned mystery, in between the "literary" fiction I usually read. The novels of Elizabeth George I've enjoyed because they are more literary than most--her detectives have, over the course of her novels, grown and experienced life. I've read about a half-dozen of her books, from the first one to A Traitor to Memory (I think she's had one or two come out since this one), and I've been keen on seeing what happens next with her British sleuths--Thomas Lynley and Barbara Havers of Scotland Yard.

One thing to note about Elizabeth George--she doesn't skimp. Most of her books are lengthy for mysteries, but this one was really daunting--1,007 pages! That certainly must be a record for the mystery genre, and is usually reserved for the books of James Michener, who is writing about thousands of years of history. No matter how compelling, I think that's egregiously long for the mystery or thriller--who wants to take over a month, like I did, to read it?

I did finish it, though, over six weeks of reading. The story concerns a woman who is killed by a hit and run driver. Her estranged son is a concert violinist who has recently lost the ability to play, and he keeps a diary in the form of a conversation with his therapist. We soon learn that he had a sister who was murdered years earlier, and a German nanny went to prison for the crime. That earlier murder, of course, ties in to the present one, and Lynley and Havers, along with their colleague Winston Nkata, are on the case.

In addition to the length, the structure is very frustrating. It is typical of George to begin the book with a prologue involving a character you don't come across again for scads of pages. It's as if she wants you to have that moment where you say to yourself, "Ah, I remember her!" Also, her detectives don't make an appearance until about page sixty, and just when the action gets going, she cuts back to the violinist's diary entries. I would wager a lot of people started this book but didn't finish.

George is a woman who lives in California but sets her novels in England, an Anglophile for sure, and for that reason she appeals to the Anglophile in her reader. Unlike most of her books, this one does not take place in the countryside, so there is a distinct lack of feeling like one wants to hop a plane to London after reading it.

As for the mystery itself, well, it was okay. What makes up most of those 1,007 pages are copious details about the lives of the suspects and peripheral characters, some of them leading down alleys in an attempt at misdirection, I suppose. Also, instead of learning who the killer is in the last few pages, George wraps up the mystery with about thirty page to go, and uses her remaining time for more character work. Before I read her next book, I will cross my fingers that she has had the supervision of a strong editor.