I love Elizabeth George and her books tremendously. The characters of Lynley, Havers, and co. are an instrumental part of my love of mystery. Still, a part of me has never been able to forgive her for that one moment.
I just finished "What Came Before He Shot Her" - one of the saddest books I've ever read. You knew all the way through what was coming but it was still awful. I want a sequel to it - and I want everyone to be ok... Probably not going to happen! Elizabeth George is a wonderful writer.
Thanks for uploading this! It is always interesting to hear an author talking about the creative process. As an erstwhile loyal follower, I must confess to reading EG mysteries for the whodunit; character development was optional and, IMO, even took the focus away from the mystery. My interest had been waning even before With No One As Witness, and that book became my last EG - despite her privileges and insecurities, Helen remained one of the very few who came across as "normal" in the host of characters.
I was, as she says she wanted, devastated when Helen was killed off. I cursed you, Ms. George! But I have to say that the next book, What Came Before He Shot Her, was probably my favorite in the series. As upset as I was by his actions, my heart ached for that boy and the circumstances that led him to kill Helen.
If you compare yourself to a great lady of crime, the queen of crime, you should READ the books you make commentary about. Miss Marple and Poirot are certainly not frozen in time. Certainly Miss Marple ages as mentioned in later books, when old-ailments creep up. But also Poirot is much younger in the earlier stories then the later novels.
Once I heard Helen would be killed off on Goodreads I stopped reading EG's books. "Traitor to Memory" was my last. Re-read all the rest but never will I go beyond.
Did that young boy kill Helen? I remember a hint at the end of 'What Came Before He Shot Her' that the real perpetrator had been an older boy. What strikes me as odd is that Lynley has never instigated an investigation into Helen's murder. I think it would have been in character for him to do so, once the terrible shock had subsided.
The character Helen was never really developed. Why would a person like lynley even develop or want a relationship with an insecure profiler. In itself that makes no sense. Helen should never have been brought in. Insignificant....who would ever hire a profiler with Helen's issues. Other than that..story compelled me to watch entirety in one setting. Purely my opinion as an individual viewer.
+Antony Andre' Lynley loved Helen because she was beautiful, intelligent, sexy and aristocratic. It was sad how her character was degraded, and it wasn't even "Helen" who got killed - it was some substitute actress with no chemistry with Thomas. Lousy script writing from my point of view - and to say you can only kill the baby (which she did), kidnap the baby or give the baby a terrible disease...........................just disgusting, and very unimaginative. cheers
I agree with a lot of the comments here about 'Helen'. I've just watched the series again and switched off as soon as the 2nd Helen entered the equation. No chemistry, ridiculous insecurities, hopeless profiler. I don't know if she is a bad actor or she has just been dealt a badly written role. Apart from the silly Helen episodes the rest of the series works well and is watchable. I guess the Author just had a wobble with Helen.
I think Catherine Russell plays her the best and I liked her the most and was REALLY sad when she died and this was the point what made me read the books.
Having only read the books (never seen any TV versions), I always thought that Helen was by far the least interesting regular character and indeed I often grew irritated at all her vacillating and "troublemaking" in the earlier books. So in MANY ways, rather than being shocked by her death, I thought Ms. George had made a wise decision to bump Helen off, thus opening the ongoing narrative to new directions. In reality, Barbara Havers has become the most interesting character in the canon, and her relative dominance since DECEPTION ON HIS MIND is very welcome. I just don't miss Helen one little bit -- she never seemed as compelling or three-dimensional as Simon & Deborah St. James or as worthy of our attention. So I think the author made an impeccably good decision to remove her from the world of the novels. I won't go so far as to say "good riddance," but...almost! :)
If you kill of a major key-figur gave it some meaning. She says her Helen was killed by a random street robbery. But reading the next novel what came before he shot her, you notice at the end it was al a dileberate plot with a well chosen subject. But why is never explained.
That's the point, sometimes there is no "why", or the reason is too abstract for even the perpetrator to understand, let alone the victim's loved ones. Watch some true crime TV sometime; the saddest ones to me are not the greedy, jealous or evil intentioned ones. They're the random, pointless or "just because I wanted to see what it would be like to kill somebody" crimes.
And Nathaniel Parker is a lookalike of Keanu Reeves But as a character he never was great Barbara . He is a Yoho on emotions with her , so angry and belittling and then sees she does GREAT but not really uplifts her . That Aristocracy of him shows in the dvd series . I didn't read the books The last episode was based on a Canadian couple who killed in Ontario . The worse she got out after 12 years and settled in Quebec, made a short time in the Carribean. Bernardo is still in jail
A big mistake! She ripped the heart out of the series. Lynley is uninteresting on his own, and his new romances are arbitrary and so unconvincing I skip those chapters.
A Suitable Vengeance from the series is not an accurate representation of the book. I have never liked the Helen character or the Deborah character. I wasn't particularly upset when she died.
Rofl ... the characters are rather repetitive anyways (always the same "crossing the line" and loyalty questions). The character of Helen was terrible anyways and she just realized how bad it actually was and "took the easy way out". SHE just cant make her characters happy ... and that shows how bad she actually is at writing.
