Elizabeth George is the New York Times bestselling author of fourteen novels of psychological suspense. Her work has been honoured with the Anthony and Agatha Awards, the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, and the MIMI, Germany’s prestigious prize for suspense fiction.
Her latest novel in the Inspector Lynley series, “Just One Evil Act” is set in Lucca and Barga
Barbara is at a loss: The daughter of her friend Taymullah Azhar has been taken by her mother, and Barbara can’t really help—Azhar had never married Angelina, and his name isn’t on Hadiyyah’s, their daughter’s, birth certificate. He has no legal claim. Azhar and Barbara hire a private detective, but the trail goes cold.
Azhar is just beginning to accept his soul-crushing loss when Angelina reappears with shocking news: Hadiyyah has been kidnapped from an open air market in Lucca, Italy. The Italian police are investigating, and the Yard won’t get involved, until Barbara takes matters into her own hands — at the risk of her own career.
As both Barbara and her partner, Inspector Thomas Lynley, soon discover, the case is far more complex than a typical kidnapping, revealing secrets that could have far-reaching effects outside of the investigation. With both her job and the life of a little girl on the line, Barbara must decide what matters most, and how far she’s willing to go to protect it. The book can be bought on line here
It was only natural that Piero Fanucci could not possibly live in a town convenient to Lucca. That would have made everyone’s life easier, and il Pubblico Ministero was not a man interested in making anyone’s life easier, least of all the policemen who did his bidding. He liked to live in the Tuscan hills. Thus he lived in the Tuscan hills. If someone he wished to converse with concerning an investigation had to sweat an hour’s drive on an April evening to get to him, that was simply how things were.
At least il Pubblico Ministero didn’t live in the old part of Barga. Getting to him, then, would have meant a climb up endless stairs and a negotiation of the maze of passageways that led in the direction of the Duomo, high on the top of the hill. Instead, thank God, Fanucci lived along the road from Gallicano. It was a dangerous series of switchbacks climbing at a hair-raising angle from a village in the valley, but at least one could get there by car.
….. it took nearly an hour to reach the turnoff, their route coursing along the River Serchio, first on the great alluvial plain, then into the hills, and at last into the Alps. The river was a fast-moving torrent at this time of year since snow at the highest elevation in the mountains had been melting for weeks. The result was waterfalls, sunstruck cascades, and glittering pools, all of which could be glimpsed as the police car rushed past them. The new growth of spring was thick and lush as they climbed into the mountains, and the wildflowers splashed yellow, violet, and red in swathes of colour along verges and into the trees. And the trees themselves-pines, oaks, and ilexes-grew right to the edges of villages that had no vehicular access, forming a wall of greenery that seemed to prevent the mountains themselves from descending upon and swallowing up the scattering of terracotta-roofed buildings perched precariously on the edges of cliffs that dropped hundreds of feet into more forest beneath them.
- 1988: A Great Deliverance — (ISBN 9780553278026)
- 1989: Payment in Blood — (ISBN 9780553284362)
- 1990: Well-Schooled in Murder — (ISBN 9780553287349)
- 1991: A Suitable Vengeance — (ISBN 9780553295603)
- 1992: For the Sake of Elena — (ISBN 9780553561272)
- 1992: Missing Joseph — (ISBN 9780553566048)
- 1993: Playing for the Ashes — (ISBN 9780553092622)
- 1996: In the Presence of the Enemy — (ISBN 9780553092653)
- 1997: Deception on His Mind — (ISBN 9780553102345)
- 1999: In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner — (ISBN 9780553102352)
- 2001: A Traitor to Memory— (ISBN 9780553801279)
- 2003: A Place of Hiding — (ISBN 9780553801309)
- 2005: With No One as Witness — (ISBN 9780060798451)
- 2006: What Came Before He Shot Her — (ISBN 9780060545628)
- 2008: Careless in Red — (ISBN 9780061160875)
- 2010: This Body of Death — (ISBN 9780061160882)
- 2012: Believing The Lie — (ISBN 9780525952589)
- 2013: Just One Evil Act — (ISBN 9781444706000)
“A master of the English mystery.”
--The New York Times“Ms. George can do it all, with style to spare.”
--The Wall Street Journal