What Came Before He Shot Her
by Elizabeth George
Hodder & Stoughton, HK$150
The most recent - and perhaps final - of Elizabeth George's best-selling Inspector Lynley series ended dramatically with the gunning down of Lynley's pregnant wife, Helen, on their Belgravia doorstep, and with her death and that of their unborn child when he ordered her life support to be turned off.
At first it seemed that the murder of With No-One as Witness was related to his investigations. But then a 12-year-old mixed-race boy, Joel Campbell, was arrested for the seemingly motiveless killing. This, in the wake of the death of his wife and his hope, prompted Lynley to quit the force.
In writing With No-One as Witness George originally included Joel's back story. But at the urging of her British editor she unpicked it from the fabric of that novel to create a stand-alone. What Came Before He Shot Her is the not entirely successful result.
Billed by her publishers as a complex urban thriller, it's not so much that as a fictional examination of a dysfunctional family, set in the context of the criminal underbelly of London housing estates.