Inspector Lynley Series

The series follows detective Thomas Lynley and his partner Barbara Havers as they tackle complex and psychologically challenging crimes. Their different approaches to investigation and personal lives create a tension that is central to their relationship. The books explore themes of class, identity, and morality in Victorian Britain. Each case presents them with not only a professional challenge but also a personal test.

Recommended Reading Order

1
A Great Deliverance
Elizabeth George
336 pages
12 hours of reading
4.1(41536)Add rating
To this day, the low, thin wail of an infant can be heard in Keldale's lush green valleys. Three hundred years ago, as legend goes, the frightened Yorkshire villagers smothered a crying babe in Keldale Abbey, where they'd hidden to escape the ravages of Cromwell's raiders. Now into Keldale's pastoral web of old houses and older secrets comes Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley, the eighth earl of Asherton. Along with the redoubtable Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, Lynley has been sent to solve a savage murder that has stunned the peaceful countryside. For fat, unlovely Roberta Teys has been found in her best dress, an axe in her lap, seated in the old stone barn beside her father's headless corpse. Her first and last words were "I did it. And I'm not sorry." Yet as Lynley and Havers wind their way through Keldale's dark labyrinth of secret scandals and appalling crimes, they uncover a shattering series of revelations that will reverberate through this tranquil English valley—and in their own lives as well.
2
Payment in Blood
Elizabeth George
3.9(300)Add rating
From acclaimed author George comes this literate, vastly detailed, and intricately characterized piece. Scotland Yard's Thomas Lynley, unexpectedly assigned to a gory stabbing murder, uncovers deeply hidden family secrets and various psychological convolutions among suspects.
3
Well-schooled in Murder
Elizabeth George
432 pages
16 hours of reading
4.1(22096)Add rating
Author's style compared to P. D. James and Ruth Rendell.
4
A Suitable Vengeance
Elizabeth George
449 pages
16 hours of reading
4.0(13556)Add rating
When Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley, Eighth Earl of Asherton, and his fiancee, Deborah Cotter, arrive at Howenstow, Lynley's family home, they find the atmosphere rife with tension.
5
For the Sake of Elena
Elizabeth George
496 pages
18 hours of reading
3.9(341)Add rating
Elena Weaver, in her skimpy dresses and bright jewellery, exuded intelligence and sexuality. A student at St Stephen's College, Cambridge, she lived a life of casual but intense physical and emotional relationships, with scores to settle and targets to achieve. Until someone, lying in wait on the bank of the River Cam, where Elena went running every morning, bludgeoned the young woman to death. Called into the rarefied world of academia, Inspector Thomas Lynley and his partner Barbara Havers find a tangled skein of love, obsession and desire - a maelstrom of emotion that has claimed Elena Weaver's life.
6
Missing Joseph
Elizabeth George
4.0(292)Add rating
The power of parental love, a power which overrides all other considerations, all other loves and loyalties, but which can end in tragedy._
7
Playing for the Ashes
Elizabeth George
688 pages
25 hours of reading
3.9(311)Add rating
"The story begins with my father, actually, and the fact that I'm the one who's answerable for his death. It was not my first crime, as you will see, but it is the one my mother couldn't forgive." In her astonishing "New York Times" bestseller, acclaimed author Elizabeth George reveals the even darker truth behind this startling confession. "Playing for the Ashes" is a rich tale of passion, murder and love in which Inspector Thomas Lynley and Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers once again find themselves embroiled in a case where nothing--and no one--is really what it seems. Intense, suspenseful and brilliantly written, "Playing for the Ashes" will make readers "search out the sleuthing pair's first six adventures...a treasure," as "Cosmopolitan" predicted in their review. "From the Paperback edition."
8
In the Presence of the Enemy
Elizabeth George
636 pages
23 hours of reading
4.1(10575)Add rating
Dennis Luxford has made a career out of exposing scandal, and when he is offered another government sleaze story, his hesitation seems inexplicable. But at the heart of the scoop lies the kidnapping of his daughter. Inspector Lynley and Dectective Sergeant Havers are called in.
9
Deception on His Mind
Elizabeth George
716 pages
26 hours of reading
4.1(10135)Add rating
When a member of the small but growing Asian community of Balford-le-Nez is found dead, the sleepy seaside town ignites, and Sergeant Barbara Havers, working without her long-time partner, must find the killer before the price of deception becomes more than anyone can afford. Reissue. (A PBS Mystery! presentation, airing August 2004, starring Nathaniel Parker & Sharon Small) (Mystery)
10
In pursuit of the proper sinner
Elizabeth George
720 pages
26 hours of reading
4.1(12948)Add rating
When the body of Nicola Maiden, the daughter of a retired Scotland Yard undercover officer, is found near an unidentified body in the middle of a pre-historic stone circle in Derbyshire, Inspector Lynley is asked to lead the investigation into the deaths. Lynley must get to the bottom of the crime without the assistance of his long-time partner Sergeant Barbara Havers following her demotion as a result of an internal investigation. But Barbara Havers has plans of her own, and they involve the very case that Lynley is working on . . .
11
A Traitor to Memory
Elizabeth George
4.0(9372)Add rating
Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley risks his career when he discovers that a recent murder victim had been tied to an old homicide investigation that could involve his superior, Superintendent Malcolm Webberly.
12
A Place of Hiding
Elizabeth George
632 pages
23 hours of reading
3.9(8152)Add rating
The sudden death of Guy Brouard after his morning swim shocks the residents of Guernsey. A generous patron and benefactor of the island since his arrival there a decade ago, his demise puts a question mark over many cherished projects. When a young American woman is charged with the murder, her brother seeks help from the only contact he has in the UK - Deborah St James. Deborah is horrified to find that her old friend has been arrested and persuades her husband Simon to accompany her to Guernsey to avert this miscarriage of justice. There they find a tangled web of deceit and betrayal, with its origins in wartime occupation. In solving the crime, they must rely on their long-standing friendship with Inspector Lynley; they must also learn painful lessons about loyalty and trust, and the loving tyranny of family ties.
13
With No One as Witness
Elizabeth George
4.1(11680)Add rating
When an adolescent boy's mutilated body is found, it doesn't take long for the police to realize that this is the work of a serial killer.
14
What Came Before He Shot Her
Elizabeth George
656 pages
23 hours of reading
3.8(940)Add rating
The shocking conclusion of Elizabeth George's previous bestseller, WITH NO ONE AS WITNESS, saw the wife of New Scotland Yard's Thomas Lynley gunned down in the street outside her home. Under arrest for the crime is a twelve-year-old boy, Joel Campbell. What possible motive could he have? What chain of events could have led such a child from the housing estates of North Kensington to the elegant streets of Belgravia with such deadly intent? The answer to these questions is a complex mixture of fate and circumstance. Abandoned (albeit involuntarily) by his parents, Joel and two siblings are dumped on the doorstep of his aunt's house. Kendra, childless and with two marriages behind her, is doing her best to turn her life around; responsibility for three troubled children is not what she had in mind. Drugs, neglect, violence and poverty are commonplace in North Kensington. Joel does his best to look out for his family, but that involves a Faustian pact. And the Devil will have his pay.
15
Careless in Red
Elizabeth George
3.9(13485)Add rating
After his wife's murder, Scotland Yard's Thomas Lynley retreats to Cornwell and his grief. While hiking along the coast, he discovers the body of a young man who appears to have fallen to his death. It soon becomes apparent, however, that a killer is at work, and Lynley finds himself both a witness and a suspect.
16
This body of death
Elizabeth George
596 pages
21 hours of reading
4.0(15563)Add rating
On compassionate leave after the murder of his wife, Thomas Lynley is called back to Scotland Yard when the body of a woman is found stabbed and abandoned in an isolated London cemetery. While Lynley works on the case in London, his former colleagues Barbara Havers and Winston Nkata follow the murder trail south to the New Forest--and to an outcome that is both tragic and shocking.
17
Believing the Lie
Elizabeth George
576 pages
21 hours of reading
3.8(11237)Add rating
Inspector Thomas Lynley is mystified when he's sent undercover to investigate the death of Ian Cresswell at the request of the man's uncle, the wealthy and influential Bernard Fairclough. The death has been ruled an accidental drowning. But when Lynley enlists the help of his friends Simon and Deborah St. James, the trio's digging soon reveals that the Fairclough clan is awash in secrets, lies, and motives.
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18
Just One Evil Act
Elizabeth George
3.7(7967)Add rating
When Hadiyyah Upman disappears from London in the company of her mother, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers is as devastated as the girl's father. They are her close friends as well as neighbours, but since the child is with her mother, nothing can be done. Five months later, Hadiyyah is kidnapped from an open air market in Lucca, Italy, and this triggers an investigation in the full glare of the media spotlight. Barbara's clever manipulation of the worst of London's tabloids forces New Scotland Yard to become involved. But rather than Barbara herself, her superior officer DI Thomas Lynley is assigned to handle a situation made delicate by racial issues, language difficulties, and the determination of an Italian magistrate to arrest and convict someone - anyone - for the crime.
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19
A Banquet of Consequences
Elizabeth George
720 pages
26 hours of reading
3.9(10379)Add rating
Inspector Lynley investigates the London end of an ever more darkly disturbing case, with Barbara Havers and Winston Nkata looking behind the peaceful façade of country life to discover a twisted world of desire and deceit. The suicide of William Goldacre is devastating to those left behind. But what was the cause of his tragedy and how far might the consequences reach? Is there a link between the young man's leap from a Dorset cliff and a horrific poisoning in Cambridge? Following various career-threatening misdemeanours, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers is desperate to redeem herself. So when a past encounter with bestselling feminist writer Clare Abbott and her pushy personal assistant Caroline Goldacre gives her a connection to the Cambridge murder, Barbara begs DI Thomas Lynley to let her pursue the crime. Full of shocks, intensity and suspense from first page to last, A Banquet of Consequences reveals both Lynley and Havers under pressure, and author Elizabeth George writing at the very height of her exceptional powers.
20
The Punishment She Deserves
Elizabeth George
704 pages
25 hours of reading
4.1(9231)Add rating
The cozy, bucolic town of Ludlow is stunned when one of its most revered and respected citizensIan Druitt, the local deaconis accused of a serious crime. Then, while in police custody, Ian is found dead. Did he kill himself? Or was he murdered? A masterful work of suspense, The Punishment She Deserves sets Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers and Inspector Thomas Lynley against one of their most intricate cases. Fans of the longtime series will love the many characters from Elizabeth Georges previous novels who join Lynley and Havers, and readers new to the series will quickly see why she is one of the most popular and critically acclaimed writers of our time.
21
Something to Hide
Elizabeth George
4.1(511)Add rating
Elizabeth George delivers another intelligent, intricate mystery - New York TimesAward-winning author Elizabeth George delivers another masterpiece of suspense in her Inspector Lynley series.
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I, Richard
Elizabeth George
3.5(1692)Add rating
A collection of five stories of human weakness and psychological suspense includes one tale that features a cameo appearance by a young Inspector Thomas Lynley.