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What Came Before He Shot Her
 
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What Came Before He Shot Her (Paperback)

by Elizabeth George (Author)
3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
RRP: £6.99
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Frequently Bought Together

What Came Before He Shot Her + Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley Mystery 14) + With No One as Witness
Price For All Three: £14.04

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Product details

  • Paperback: 656 pages
  • Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks (29 Nov 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0061253790
  • ISBN-13: 978-0340935576
  • ASIN: 034093557X
  • Product Dimensions: 17.2 x 11.2 x 4.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 31,594 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #4 in  Books > Crime, Thrillers & Mystery > Authors, A-Z > G > George, Elizabeth > Complete List

Product Description

Review

'Elizabeth George takes a brave descent into the world of gangs and teenage murderers . . . the novel shows how even the best of intentions can be defeated by poverty, bad breaks and bad guys.' (Daily Express )

'Why haven't I read Elizabeth George before? Maybe because someone told me she was a serious crime writer, and I listen to thrillers to escape, not to think. All this will change; she's brilliant' (Sue Arnold, Guardian )

'George's best since her 1998 debut. Read it and weep.' (Kirkus Reviews )

'Absolutely remarkable and a great achievement' (Boyd Hilton on BBC Radio FiveLive )

'A very powerful novel.' (Kate Mosse )

'It shifts the way you look at things – I was completely drawn into this world I knew nothing about and I’m full of admiration' (Sarah Harrison )


Product Description

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.

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Customer Reviews

33 Reviews
5 star:
 (9)
4 star:
 (6)
3 star:
 (5)
2 star:
 (6)
1 star:
 (7)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.1 out of 5 stars (33 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars This is NOT a Lynley/Havers mystery, BUT..., 29 Jan 2008
It is, essentially, the anatomy of a murder. It describes the events leading up to the conclusion of E. George's last work "With No One As Witness", however the connection starts taking shape only towards the end of this book. As an E. George's fan and after having enjoyed all the Lynley/Havers mysteries, I was truly looking forward to find out some answers to the unexpected and tragic ending of her previous book, but the more I read, the more my eagerness became deflated. Simply, I had mistakenly expected a sequel, and this is not it.

However, my feelings were not hurt, so to speak, as it is also true that the more I read, the more I appreciated the story line, which I would define, at this point, essential for the understanding -or, at least, for coming to terms- with what had happened previously. This is a well written tale of a dysfunctional and troubled family in North Kensington, London. As usual, I have appreciated and enjoyed the author's ever-present deep psychological insights. Also, the inclusion of slang language dialogues, where needed, represents the main characters vividly and real-life-like. Some descriptions and situations resulting from impossibly hard and complicated circumstances are simply heartbreaking.

I would categorize this book almost as a statement about those people born into less fortunate families and backgrounds. It is a work of fiction and simultaneously a sad reminder of how things can go wrong in real life if proper support lacks in many ways, for reasons that may commonly be considered avoidable but are, more often than not, beyond control, despite the well meaning efforts made by most people (some families themselves, authorities etc.) to avoid degeneration and degradation.
Conspiracy of silence and exterior toughness as means of survival dominate the scene but, predictably, they do not lead to definite/satisfactory/proper solutions but rather contribute towards the perpetuation of a cycle hard to break. Easier said than done, for both fictitious and nonfictional events.

I am now most definitely anticipating E. George's next Lynley/Havers book, "Careless in Red", which should be the "real" sequel to "With No One As Witness". It will be available next May (I've just checked!).

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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars An interesting, if depressing, book, 6 Mar 2008
By J. Bowen "Jamie Bowen" (Hampstead London) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I've never been much of a fan of Elizabeth George. In her early books, her usual central characters came across as too stuck up (Linley) or too much of an inverted snob (Havers) for their own good.

In this book, George moves away from Linley and Havers to a book that can be best described as one that examines the 'psychology of a murderer.' In a previous book, Linley's wife was killed by a 12 year old. In this book we find out how the child came to murder someone.

It's a depressing book, if a little far fetched. It deals with the unremitting horrors that some kids have to see, and that's often unpleasant reading. The book is also a little strange, in that it seems to want to excuse the child for what he did, when for most of the book he could have stepped back and said 'No thanks, not for me.'

The twist in the tail is rather clever and was one I didn't see coming, which is a change for me. I can usually spot them coming a mile off these days. The unexpected twist made it worthwhile for me to read the book I think and might cause you to enjoy it too..
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Thought He'd Never Shoot Her!!, 2 Oct 2007
By Kevan James "yeskev" - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
I'll be honest, I've gone off Elizabeth George's books over the years, mainly becuase her characters are such stereotypes - stereotypical English Toffs in Inspector Lynley and his friends (and most of all his wife - was I the only one glad to see her go?), stereotypical 'commoners' in Barbara Havers. And what is worse her Toffs are so anacronistic - did she steal them from Agatha Christie?

So I approached this book with some degree of pleasure - something different. But blimey, don't it go on!? I got to the point where I didn't care what happened - it could easily have lost 200 pages (almost plucked at randum since it felt that the same things kept happening over and over again)

And more stereotypes! This time stereotypical black Londoners - do they really all say "innit" at the end of ever sentence?

I'm sure that if I had been anywhere other than stuck on an Air India flight from New York with nothing else to read and only Asian films available to watch, I would have given up on this after 100 pages or so.

Massive disappointment!!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Elizabeth George - What came before he shot her
I purchased this book because I knew the author was the writer of the "Lynley Mysteries". The only mystery with this book is where was Lynley?? Read more
Published 15 months ago by P. E. Carnell

5.0 out of 5 stars A departure from the Lynley-based novels but even more compelling in its own way
Was not disappointed in the least, as some reviewers were. George has written a novel which takes the reader into a world which is richly detailed. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Layla

1.0 out of 5 stars Cruel
As others have written before, I couldn't finish the book, I had to stop after 400 pages, and just read the end. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Ritita

1.0 out of 5 stars Stick to what you do best...
Having waded my way through "With no one as witness" which I felt was overly long, I approached this one with some trepidation. And I can't finish it. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Tatiana Beaverhausen

4.0 out of 5 stars A brave, but unusual ,George
Not surprisingly, Elizabeth George's departure from the Lynley sequence of crime stories has divided readers - indeed, Lynley doesn't appear at all, and at the end we have a view... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Mondoro

2.0 out of 5 stars Ignorance of Welfare State
As an American the writer shows her ignorance of the British welfare state. This family would have had help from all the agencies with child benefit guardians allowance etc. Read more
Published 17 months ago by P. Preston

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent departure from murder mysteries
A brave departure from her normal genre, Elizabeth George should be applauded for trying something different and, in my opinion, succeeding. Read more
Published 17 months ago by BookWorm

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent story - I want to know what happens next
As a big fan of the Lynley/Havers books and disappointed by her previous attempt to move away from these two as the main characters in a book, I started this with a little... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Kathryn

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but depressing
I have read all of Elzabeth George's books and have enjoyed most of them, give or take a few! It does seem to be the way of detective writers to start off with smallish, pithy... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Jane Watson

5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping!
Elizabeth George is an author who either delights me or dismays me. I will always check out the star rating of her most recent works to at least give me an indication whether... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Louise Saunders

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