George writes Victorian novel-length mysteries (this latest weighs in at more than 700 pages) that fairly zip along, keeping the reader on the knife's edge of suspense, thanks to George's skill at weaving together intriguing characters, disturbing action, police procedure, psychological insight, and mordant wit. In this, the eleventh installment in the Lynley-Havers series, the Derbyshire detectives are called to London, at the behest of their superintendent, to investigate a vehicular homicide. The female hit-and-run victim was at the core of a celebrated child-murder case years before. George makes this far more a novel of character than a procedural by shifting points of view from the aristocratic, cerebral Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley to his rough-hewn, unmarried, somewhat bitter partner, Detective Constable Barbara Havers, and to the estranged son of the murder victim, a celebrated violinist tortured by his baby sister's death.