Playing for the Ashes
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley becomes embroiled in a case where nothing—and no one—is really what it seems in this “compelling [and] indefinitely engrossing” (People) novel from the renowned Inspector Lynley series.
When milkman Martin Snell makes his usual delivery to fifteenth-century Celandine Cottage one morning in Kent, he expects to be greeted by the cottage’s sensual and seductive tenant, Gabriella Patten—not by the ugly remains of a fire pointing to a murder. As Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and his partner, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, begin their investigation, they soon find themselves in conflict with the local investigator—and discover ripples of shock spreading outward from the crime: from the victim’s husband, who claims indifference to her faithlessness, to the estranged wife of a member of the national cricket team, to an angry teenager, a former prostitute, and an ex-lover of Gabriella who has sworn her off to save his marriage.
As all of England, as well as the world of national cricket, reels from the crime, Lynley and Havers find themselves working on the most frustrating—and politically dangerous—case of their careers. And when in an act of desperation Lynley breaks department rules to flush out the killer, he risks his career with New Scotland Yard.
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Elizabeth George
Elizabeth George is the New York Times and internationally best selling author of twenty British crime novels featuring Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and his unconventional partner Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers. Her crime novels have been translated into 30 languages and featured on television by the BBC. She is also the author of a young adult series set on the island where she lives in the state of Washington.
A longtime instructor of creative writing, she has taught at colleges, universities, writers' retreats, and conferences internationally. She most recently taught a live online creative writing class for Hedgebrook Women's Writers' Retreat on Whidbey Island. She is the recipient of the Anthony Award, the Agatha Award, France's Grand Prix di Literatture Policiere, and Germany's MIMI. She has twice been nominated for an Edgar Award, and she is the recipient of an honorary doctorate of humane letters from California State University Fullerton, and an honorary MFA from Northwest Institute of Language Arts (Whidbey Island MFA Program).
Inspector Lynley
Inspector Lynley consists of twenty-two books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
