In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner by Elizabeth George
Elizabeth George writes an erudite mystery. Her vocabulary is impressive and her willingness to believe you share it is unmatched, even in more literary works. Her paragraphs are pleasantly long and the criminals don’t go after the detectives because “this time it’s personal.” She’s low on police procedure and legal process–once you’ve been a McBain fan, you’ll never buy into a unilateral search warrant again–but then they’re in Britain. Maybe the rules are different there.
The thing is, she’s depressing as hell. Her principal characters are realistically multidimensional, but they’re depressing (and depressed). I don’t want to be these people. I don’t even want to know these people. They live in a drab, unhappy world–a world I’m trying to escape when I read–where loved ones, even the good guys, aren’t always kind to each other, a truism I know too well.
I’m not insulted by George’s works, but I can’t bring myself to seek them out either. In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner was a long read without ever being a slow one, but I’m not sorry it’s over.