I have been part of a Book Club since May. I’ll write up my thoughts on the previous two books in due course. However, why not start with my thoughts on the third book we’ve read?
The book in question is Elizabeth George’s What Came Before He Shot Her. It is the backstory of Joel Campbell and what motivated a seemingly sensible, normal twelve-year-old to commit murder. The murder having occured at the end of a previous George novel in the Inspector Lynsley series.
I came to this book with a fresh perspective. I have never read a Lynsley series book or remember watching any of the BBC adaptations. Therefore, my judgement is not clouded by expectations. The book is a big departure from Elizabeth George’s typical Lynsley series and represents an artistic risk. This isn’t even a case of Michael Connelly-esque departures from Harry Bosch but otherwise following a similar formula. George has completed departed the crime who-dunnit formula.
From the first sentence we know Joel Campbell is to become a murderer (even if we did not read the previous Lynsley novel). Of course, having not read the previous book I did not know who was to be killed - but followers of the series would have also known that element. The book is therefore more of a why-dunnit. Except… it never truly, adequately answers this fundamental question.
At the end of the book, I understand why Joel accepts his responsibility as the killer. Yet I do not know why Inspector Lynsley’s wife was targetted. I also found it hard to follow and accept the rapid change in Joel’s behaviour; his departure from right-and-wrong. Mostly there was a certain depressing feeling to the book, that his crime was an inevitable consequence - and yet there were many opportunities (missed chances) to break the downward cycle.
The book could be seen as a apologist’s attempt to justify gang culture and criminality. It could also be seen as an indictment of failures in the British welfare, social and education system. Written by an American author this could be mistaken as anti-Britishness. Yet I am not sure the book is these things. Primarily it is a novel - overly long for the story it needed to tell - and secondly George has written thirteen previous novels based in the UK. She understands the British and must be seen as anglophilic.
So why is the novel so dark? I imagine it is actually quite hard to explain a murder - one without obvious motive - and that Ms George has had to resort to some artistic licence. Characters can seem devoid of rational thinking and a bit of a caricature. Eccentric Englishness or privileged backgrounds abounds in the whites; misused intelligence profilgates the blacks - and caught in the middle are the mixed-raced Campbells.
The book is worthy of a read, though falls short of its aim or as being a great political-social piece. It tells it tale, it tells it quite well - a bit too much stylised dialogue and slightly too long - and is an enjoyable read. I would rate it 3/5. One for a long rainy weekend.