He found the body on the forty-third day of his walk . . .
Devastated by the senseless murder of his wife, Detective Superintendent Thomas Lynley retreated to Cornwall, where he has spent six solitary weeks hiking the bleak and rugged coastline. But no matter how far he walks, the painful memories do not diminish.
Then, at the base of a cliff near a town better known for its surfing than its intrigue, Lynley discovers the body of a young man who has fallen to his death. First a witness, then a suspect when the hand of a killer is revealed, Lynley remains, above all, a policeman willing to aid the gruff head of an understaffed local constabulary in her investigation. But the secrets in this community run dark and deepβand Lynley must somehow find a way to let go of the past long enough to solve a most devious and dreadful crime.
From Publishers Weekly
George's novels about Scotland Yard's Thomas Lynley invariably have a long wind up before the action begins, so a narrator with the right tempo is absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, Charles Keating lets the first few disks develop as quietly as the Cornwall countryside in which it is set. Keating reads the novel instead of performing it as he did with the previous Lynley mystery, What Came Before He Shot Her. While he reads carefully and clearly, he sounds a bit bored. It's a shame that the unabridged version narrated by John Lee from Books on Tape is not available through brick and mortar retailers (BOT, a branch of Random House, supplies libraries, schools and download sites with product); it is the superior version. A Harper hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 10).
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From Booklist
You canβt keep a good detective down. George has put longtime series hero Detective Superintendent Thomas Lynley of New Scotland Yard through quite a bit lately: in her last novel, With No One as Witness (2005), Lynleyβs much-loved wife was shot to death on the street, reducing him to a grief-stricken shell and leading to his resignation from the Yard. How to resurrect him? George uses a pretty klunky (but familiar to all mystery fans) deus ex machina device. Lynley has embarked on a walk along the coastal path in Cornwall; his rationale is that if he doesnβt keep moving, despair will overtake him. Sure enough, on day 43 of his walk, he spots, far below, what seems to his trained eye to be the vivid red and crumpled shape of a man who has plunged to his death. The machine creaks into place, with Lynley (whose walk has made him appear like a homeless man) being treated as a suspect, then with grudging respect from the local, bumbling constabulary, and finally as someone his old associate Barbara Havers of New Scotland Yard seeks to restore to his post. Despite the obvious restoration device, George delivers, once again, a mystery imbued with psychological suspense and in-depth characterization. --Connie Fletcher