From Publishers Weekly
With a British cricket term as its title, the seventh crime novel (after Missing Joseph ) featuring English Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers probes the proximity of love and hate. After cricket star Kenneth Fleming is found asphyxiated in a burned cottage on the estate of Miriam Whitelaw, his patron, Lynley and Havers, with local Detective Inspector Isabelle Ardery, look into the victim's tangled domestic affairs. Fleming, in the middle of divorce proceedings, was supposed to have been in Greece; the woman renting the cottage is missing. Lynley and Havers find the patron's wayward daughter, Olivia, formerly a drug user and prostitute, who, now afflicted with ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease--and Stephen Hawking's), is living on a barge with an animal-rights activist. Woven into the investigation are Olivia's accounts of her mother's relationship with the cricket star and of her own quest for her mother's love. Circumventing Ardery and using the media in a way discouraged by his superiors, Lynley puts his job in jeopardy. Although George's fluent prose is in full gear, the story fails to sustain momentum, sinking under the combined weight of superfluous detail and an overreaching psychological tone.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
George is a gifted writer who spins rich, colorful, mesmerizing, multifaceted stories that combine an absorbing mystery with provocative insights into her characters' innermost thoughts and emotions. Her latest story once again features Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and his sidekick, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers. Chalk and cheese when it comes to background, philosophy, style, and personality, Lynley and Havers easily forget their differences when a tough homicide needs solving--take, for example, the asphyxiation death of renowned, all-England cricket player Kenneth Fleming. The duo's inquiries turn up some disturbing facts about the cricket star. Not only was his personal life a shambles, but he had a very odd relationship with a former teacher. The case is more byzantine than any Lynley and Havers have encountered in their years as a crack homicide team, and even when they've identified Fleming's killer, the file isn't really closed. As usual, there's more to think about in George's story than simply whodunit. Readers will be astounded by the ease with which she weaves complex relationships and provocative moral, emotional, and ethical questions into the compelling plot. Another tour de force from one of today's best storytellers. Emily Melton