Some longtime Elizabeth George readers have been disappointed by a few of her recent books, ever since the shocking events of With No One as Witness. Although it is the 19th Inspector Lynley novel, A Banquet of Consequences harks back to earlier installments in the series and could serve as an excellent introduction to Thomas Lynley and Barbara Havers's entertainingly odd teamwork for new readers. It is a superb psychological thriller, in which Inspector Lynley's suave, aristocratic style melds perfectly with Sergeant Havers's brusque working-class tactics.
The story opens "Thirty-Nine Months Before" with the complicated Goldacre family: mother Caroline, who works for famed feminist Clare Abbott; younger son Will, plagued by a Tourette syndrome-like condition; and elder son Charlie, a psychoanalyst estranged from his wife. Barbara Havers (who is in disgrace at Scotland Yard after the events of Just One Evil Act) coincidentally meets Caroline and Clare; Inspector Lynley attempts to lobby on Barbara's behalf with the Superintendent; and the Goldacre family faces a series of difficult events. Then, finally, someone dies, and Havers and Lynley are drawn into the investigation.
George's lengthy novels always draw detailed depictions of a wide range of characters, and A Banquet of Consequences is no exception. Lynley, Havers and the members of the Goldacre family are nuanced and complex, and the direction the case takes is inevitably dark and twisty. Sure to please any fan of British crime fiction, A Banquet of Consequence represents suspenseful mystery at its finest. --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky Bookworm