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Deception on His Mind is the ninth book in
the Barbara Havers/Thomas Lynley series. However, it is almost
exclusively a Barbara Havers book. No Thomas Lynley, no Simon, Helen
or Deborah either, and surprisingly, I didn't miss the lot.
Deception on His Mind focuses on Barbara and completes the more intimate portraying of
the character begun in
In the Presence of
the Enemy. Thomas Lynley and
Helen Clyde finally tie the knot. Injured in her last investigation,
Barbara Havers is supposed to take a vacation. When her little
friend and neighbor, eight-year-old Hadiyyah, tells her that she and her daddy, Taymullah Azhar, are rushing
to the seaside after a strange phone call received by her father,
Barbara is curious. She later hears on the news that the Pakistani
community in the coastal town of Balford-le-Nez is in an uproar
after the murder of Haytham Querashi, a Pakistani recently arrived
in England. Querashi was supposed to marry Sahlah Malik, the
daughter of a rich Balford businessman.
Deducing that Azhar and her daughter are
heading to Balford, Barbara worries for her little friend and
decides to follow them and help in any way she can.
Luckily, the DCI in charge of the investigation is Emily Barlow, who
was in detective school with her. After reminding herself to her old
friend, Barbara will be involved
in a complex enough investigation, complicated by the fact that Muhannad Malik, brother of Sahlah, pressures the police to
acknowledge Qerashi's death as a racist murder.
Among the many suspects we discover
characters who have secrets to hide and whose
complex personalities unfold progressively. Tensions between English
and Pakistani, cultural differences and misunderstandings, the
weight of tradition against an evolving occidental society, are
illustrated by George's fine prose. In her last book,
In the Presence of
the Enemy, the recurring theme was hypocrisy, here it is
deception. Reading Deception on His Mind, the reader
progressively discovers deception on everybody's mind.
People keep
deceiving others and themselves, including
Barbara, who might pay the high price for her own deception...
Deception on His Mind is a very good
mystery, the characterization is excellent as usual.
I was a little bit disappointed by the ending, I would have liked the final revelation
to be more unexpected.
On the other hand, I liked to learn more
about Barbara, who has gone a long way since the grumpy and
prejudiced sergeant we met in
A Great Deliverance.
Rating: 
© Discussing Books,
02/11/2003 |
Critiques
