Inspector Lynley is asked by Chief Superintendent David Hillier to go to the Lake District in Cumbria to investigate the drowning of Ian Cresswell under the radar. Hillier has been asked to send someone to investigate by Bernard Fairclough, a wealthy manufacturer, and Cresswell's uncle. Cresswell has divorced his wife to have a relationship with another man, Kaveh Mehran. His wife, Niamh, has left he and Kaveh to raise their two children, Tim and Gracie. Lynley asks Simon and Deborah St. James to assist him in some incognito investigation. When they get to Cumbria, Lynley and St. James go to the Fairclough's boat house to investigate whether this was an accident or murder. The coroner there has already ruled it an accident. Deborah helps by meeting with Nicholas Fairclough, Bernard's son, and his wife Alatea from Argentina. Nick had been a drug addict until he met and married Alatea in Utah. Alatea is secretly arranging for surrogacy so she and Nick can have a child. Lynley asks Barbara Havers to investigate certain members of this family in London on the down-low. Deborah investigates this that has no relation to Ian Cresswell's death, with disastrous results. Meanwhile, Zed Benjamin, a tabloid reporter with The Source, is there trying to dig up tabloid worthy information about them. In this book there are plenty of secrets, lies, and motives to go around. Bernard Fairclough is hiding something, as is Kaveh Mehran, Tim Fairclough, Alatea, Mignon Fairclough (Nick's sister), and the Fairclough's mother, who says she is the one who found the body in the boat house. Sister Manette is trying to get Tim and Gracie into a stable family situation. Lynley is trying to decide about his relationship with Superindent Isabelle Ardery. Barbara Havers is trying to please Arderly by getting her teeth fixed, her hair cut, and her clothes upgraded with the help of Angelina, Taymullah Azar's returned lover and mother of his daughter, Hadiyyah. There is even deception here. ( )

Another intriguing and confusing addition to the series. Confusing, in a good way, as you're never sure what will happen next. Lots of character development for Lynly and Havers as well. ( )

(2012)Again, this series is just fun to read. Lynley is asked to investigate an ?accidental? drowning off the books. He can't tell anyone, especially those at Scotland Yard. He finds he has to get Barbara Havers and the St. Jameses in order to delve deeper into a family infested with secrets. Deborah St. James thinks that a sister-in-law of the victim is trying all methods of becoming a mother when in fact the woman is in fact a trans-gender who wants to desperately provide a child for her husband who doesn't know about the change. This leads to the woman's death by drowning and confirmation that the accident was just that. Barbara at the end discovers that the daughter of his next door neighbor has been taken away by the girl's mother and she is drawn to help the man who has become more than a neighbor in her eyes. Very good.KIRKUS REVIEWWhy investigate an accidental drowning?Wealth hath its privileges, and one of them, Lord Fairclough finds, is bending New Scotland Yard to his will by arranging for a discreet inquiry into the accidental drowning of his nephew Ian Cresswell. So Inspector Thomas Lynley (The Body of Death, 2010, etc.) is dispatched incognito to the Lake District, where his task is to determine whether Fairclough's wastrel son Nicholas perhaps jimmied loose the boathouse stones on which Ian slipped to his death. The coroner thinks not, but Lynley has asked forensic specialist Simon St. James and his photographer wife Deborah to nose around just in case there's evidence of foul play to be found. Meanwhile, back in London, DS Havers is engaged in another sort of research on the morosely dysfunctional Faircloughs, which includes Fairclough's warring twin daughters Manette and Mignon; his nephew Ian's corrosively angry son Tim and sexually rapacious ex-wife Niamh; as well as the man Ian left his family for, the foreign-born Kaveh; and, of course, there's Fairclough's recovering junkie/alcoholic son Nicholas and his beautiful, secretive Argentine wife Alatea. Muddying the landscape is a tabloid reporter who's eager to save his job with a juicy sex scandal, even if he has to make one up. Pedophilia, homophilia, infidelity, illegitimacy and greed will come into play, but it is Deborah, consumed with her own infertility, who sets in motion the final tragedy.Pared-down George, weighing in at a svelte 600 pages, but still strewn with subplots, melodrama, melancholy, a wretchedly unhappy Havers and the impossibly heroic, impossibly nice Thomas Lynley.

El inspector Thomas Lynley se queda perplejo cuando recibe la orden de infiltrarse para investigar la muerte de Ian Cresswell por petición del tío de la víctima, el acaudalado y poderoso Bernard Fairclough. Su muerte había sido archivada como accidental, y no hay indicios de que efectivamente, pudiera ser de otra manera. Tras pedir ayuda a sus amigos Simon y Deborah Saint James, Lynley pronto descubre que el clan Fairclough esconde múltiples secretos, mentiras y motivos suficientes para el asesinato.

Pleasing Lynley novel as usual from Elizabeth George, with various storylines woven into the narrative. The latter is also the book's weakness, as some of the stories are superfluous to the overall mystery. In addition there are too many copy-editing errors (dunlan is unforgivable). Having read the sequel, the cliffhanger seems unnecessary. ( )