Elizabeth George took a big risk in her 2005 mystery With No One as Witness when she killed off a beloved character, Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley’s wife, Helen. The next book in the series, What Came Before He Shot Her, was a disappointment, an attempt to examine the events leading up to the murder. The entire book came across as an exercise to justify the dramatic plot twist.
We are now four books past Helen’s death yet her spirit still hovers over the series. Lynley can’t come to terms with losing his wife, a tragedy made even more devastating since Helen was pregnant. Lynley can’t even bring himself to remove her things from their home in Belgravia. Lynley’s friends and fellow police officers tip toe around him, afraid to mention Helen, yet worried about his well being.
In Believing the Lie, George picks up the story from her previous mystery, This Body of Death, where Lynley began an affair with Isabelle Ardery, the new acting superintendent. Isabelle is the polar opposite of Helen. Where Lady Helen Clyde was upper class, Isabelle is working class. Where Helen was self-assured, Isabelle lacks confidence in both her work and personal life. An alcoholic, she lost custody of her children during her divorce. She and Lynley are like two lost ships in the night, each one seeking something the other one will never be able to give. The relationship is complicated since Isabelle is Lynley’s boss and she risks losing her job if they are discovered.
What Lynley wants most is to have Helen back. Throughout Believing the Lie, he imagines what Helen would do or say, at one point becoming physical ill from the pain of his loss. And he frequently questions his attraction to a wounded soul like Isabelle. This after one uncomfortable encounter: “God, what had he been thinking? Thomas Lynley, detective inspector of New Scotland Yard, titled member of the landed gentry, graduate of Oxford University with a first-class degree in being a fool.”
Truth be told, Believing the Lie is not George’s finest work. Once again, Lynley finds himself manipulated by Assistant Commission Sir David Hillier. Lynley came to his title, Lord Asherton, the old fashioned way, through birth; Hillier acquired his by cultivating the proper people. That under current of resentment on Hillier’s part fuels most encounters between the two men, Lynley always suspecting he is being used.
Lynley doesn’t need the job, something Isabelle keeps reminding him when there’s the possibility their affair may become known. Despite his title, however, Lynley is, at his core, a police officer, and a good one at that. And he recognizes good police work when he sees it, one reason his most trusted associate is Barbara Havers, a rough-around-the-edges, chain smoking detective whose allegiance to Lynley has been proven again and again.
Hillier asks Lynley to travel to the Lake District to investigate the death of Ian Cresswell at the request of the man’s uncle, the wealthy Lord Bernard Fairclough. The local police ruled the death an accidental drowning, but Fairclough suspects his son, Nicholas, a former meth user, may have been involved. Since Nicholas may one day take over Fairclough Industries, his father wants to make sure he’s innocent. Hillier swears Lynley to secrecy, meaning even Isabelle can’t know about his assignment. Naturally, Isabelle is outraged, more so when she discovers that Havers is helping Lynley, feeding him information from New Scotland Yard.
Lynley enlists two of his friends—forensic scientist Simon St. James and his wife, Deborah, a photographer—to accompany him on his mission. Their involvement, however, will lead to further complications and another death.
Although the plot is weak, what George does best in all her books is develop her characters so that we feel we know them, want to know them and spend time with them. Readers who have followed the series from the beginning with A Great Deliverance, know Lynley’s history with all the major characters. Simon was badly injured in a car accident that Lynley caused, leaving the scientist a cripple. Although Lynley was in love with Deborah, she chose to marry Simon. The three remain friends yet that past history continues to color the present and, we guess, the future.
Lies, both large and small, figure prominently in this mystery. Everyone, it seems, has something to hide, and no one is telling the truth, least of all to Lynley. Nicholas’s wife, a beautiful Argentinian, has the biggest secret of all, but each member of the Fairclough family, including, besides Lord Fairclough, his wife and his twin daughters, Manette and Mignon, are experts in deception. Add to the mix a reporter for a tabloid, The Source, whose existence is built on lies, and the plot thickens. Havers, while helping Lynley, is dealing with a crisis of her own involving her neighbor, Taymullah Azhar, his wife and daughter.
Although George is an American, in each of her books she displays her love of Britain with her beautiful descriptions of the English countryside, in this case the Lake District. In her acknowledgements, she gives guidance to fans who may like to visit some of the places she describes.
Believing the Lie
Elizabeth George
