This is the story of the three Campbell children, Toby, Joel, and Vanessa (Nessa) and their Aunt Kendra before Helen Lynley was shot. At the beginning of the book the 3 children are left on Kendra's doorstep without her knowledge by her mother who has decided to follow her current boyfriend to Jamaica with the promise that she would send for the children. Kendra has a job and is also trying to start a massage and tanning bed business. She tries to take care of the children, the offspring of her dead brother and his wife who is in a mental institution. Vanessa is 15 years old and rebelling. Toby wears a life preserver ring and is not mentally around most of the time. Joel is 12 years old and a misfit who tries to take care of his brother Toby and keep the secrets of his sister Vanessa. When Vanessa gets involved with the Blade, a gang leader who is into almost everything illegal, drugs, sex, robbery, intimidation, and murder, thing get even worse for the family. Vanessa has not been going to school since the move, Joel becomes involved with the Blade. This is not the best book of Elizabeth George, in fact it is the full of so much description that I skipped 3/4 of the book, read just the first 25% and some of the end of the book. There is no hope for this family or others in their situation shown here. ( )

The unfortunate circumstances of 3 orphaned children result in the middle child accused of murdering Inspector Thomas Lynley's wife.

Alrighty, this is the second book I've bailed on within the last week or so, which is very unlike me. I can't decide if it's my mood or if I've managed to pull two duds from the TBR pile, though both of the books have less-than-stellar reviews, so maybe it isn't me. I remember reading some Elizabeth George books back in the day (in the days before I began writing reviews), and though I don't really remember much about them, I do think I enjoyed them for the most part. I was in the mood for a longer book, and this one consisting of 17 CDs, I thought it might fit the bill. But again, after only 1.5 discs in, I decided I wasn't in the mood for 15-16 more. In the case of this one, it wasn't necessarily that the writing or story was bad. I think it just wasn't what I expected. I wanted to re-familiarize myself with Inspector Lynley and fall back into the series I had vague recollections of, but the plot of this was seemingly going to not include a lot of Lynley (at least not until much later on), so I decided to give it up and move on.

Ness, Joel y Toby afrontan un nuevo cambio en sus vidas. Su excéntrica abuela, dispuesta a eludir sus responsabilidades, decide abandonarlos frente a la puerta de la casa de su hija, la tía de los niños, que vive en la periferia marginal de Londres. La vida de los tres hermanos, no ha sido fácil hasta ese momento, y no lo será a partir de ahora. Ness es una adolescente desagradable que juguetea con las drogas y con la delincuencia. El más pequeño, Toby, es un niño con problemas de aprendizaje y que vive anclado en la dependencia que siente por su hermano Joel, un poco mayor que él y que parece asumir la responsabilidad de mantener unida a su extraña familia. Tal ambiente, como prueba la autora del libro, enmarca el camino que se ha de desandar para hallar el origen del mal, para encontrar el principio casi invisible de sucesos terribles que un día coparán las primeras páginas de los periódicos. En su momento, el asesinato de Helen Lynley ocupará la atención de todos, pero ¿cuál fue el verdadero origen del crimen? La presente novela, desde un planteamiento original y arriesgado que la autora resuelve con maestría, propone la "deconstrucción" de un asesinato. Elizabeth George plantea que al revés no interesa tanto qué pasará tras el asesinato, pues éste el el punto final del libro; lo que se ha de buscar es el origen, lo que se ha de averiguar es aquello que provocó que alguien disparara a una mujer de buena posición en un callejón de un barrio de Londres. Ahí, en el principio, se esconde siempre la explicación del trauma que arrastra el inspector Lynley, protagonista de la serie.

I did not read it beyond 100 pages. I love E. George, but this is the second time I have tried to read this one and now I have given up for good. The first time I stopped because I was so angry that she killed off a main character that I especially liked and this time I just admitted that I was not taken with anything about it. She still writes so well, but not to any end this time. ( )

"Joel Campbell was elf jaar oud toen hij met een busrit op het hellende pad naar moord terechtkwam.' Dit is de angstaanjagende openingszin van deze literaire thriller van Elizabeth George. Een beklemmend verhaal over kinderen die door het milieu waarin ze opgroeien van hun toekomst beroofd dreigen te worden.

Toby is zeven, Joel elf en Ness vijftien wanneer hun grootmoeder hen dumpt op de stoep van hun tante Kendra. Kendra Osborne, een mooie vrouw van veertig, heeft weinig omkijken naar de schuchtere Joel en de geestelijk gehandicapte Toby. Joel is op school een teruggetrokken eenling, die zich plichtsgetrouw over zijn broertje ontfermt. Hun zusje Ness daarentegen, daalt steeds verder af in een wereld van junks, dealers en geweld. Als Joel en Toby op een dag worden bedreigd, zoekt Joel bescherming bij een ex-vriendje van Ness. Maar deze crimineel vraagt daar wel iets voor terug en Joel slaat daarmee een pad in dat regelrecht naar een desastreuze ontknoping leidt.