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Content snapshot
Flag an inaccuracy →What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.
Violence
Some
A suspicious drowning and its investigation; the family dynamics involve suppressed violence
Language
Barely any
Mild language
Sexual Content
Some
Some adult romantic content — multiple affairs are central to the case
Substance Use
Barely any
Social drinking
Emotional Intensity
A lot
A family organized around protecting the family name rather than each other; the specific kind of lie that becomes impossible to withdraw once told
What this book is about
A young man drowns in a lake on the family estate of the powerful Fairclough family — and the family patriarch asks for a quiet, unofficial investigation, convinced that it was not an accident. Lynley goes undercover as a distantly connected friend; Havers works the London angle. Elizabeth George's seventeenth Lynley novel is set largely in the Lake District, and the landscape is rendered with the same attention she gives her characters. The Fairclough family is one of her richest ensemble casts — complicated, secretive, and not quite as united as they appear.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
seventeenth of the Lynley series
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