If you like Constant Gardener it's worth trying any of the '70s le Carres: They're more institutional, but have the same sense of outrage and detail.

I have a terminology question -- how do you describe the PoV when you get to hear every character's thoughts? Is that third omniscient? Is it completely unrelated to third omniscient?

I recently read Deception On His Mind which was much edgier than the TV episode (Detective Lynley), but IRRITATING. We get to hear everyone's thoughts, but no one thinks of anything until the police have discovered it. So we're in the minds of people with secrets, but they handily never think of these secrets until Havers works them out.

Yeah, that's third omniscient, although I always just call it omniscient.

I'm reading her newest right now, With No One as Witness, and really, really not liking it. Sob. Elizabeth George used to be one of my all-time favorites.

I remember seeing somewhere that the TV Lynley wasn't like the book Lynley, and made a quick-forgotten note to check the books out. Then this book lands in my lap, I recognise Havers, get excited, and then realise that the TV people inserted him into the episode, because he sure doesn't show up on the page.

So I still don't know what he's like on paper -- is there a particular point at which you'd recommend me stopping reading her? I mean, before With No One As Witness?

I didn't mind Deception, but I'd read the whole series and gathered Lynley wasn't going to show up. I think they made huge mistakes with casting the PBS mysteries, by the way.

My advice is to start at the beginning, which is...I'd have to go look it up, because my brain is a sieve. I think it's A Great Deliverance.

But the last couple books after Deception -- which are A Traitor to Memory and A Place of Hiding -- have been really meh for me.

I liked With No One as Witness better than the two or three before it. I think they started to go downhill to me after about the first seven or eight. How much angst can Lynley have without his head exploding? Barbara Havers is my favorite character, though.

I felt a bit blindsided by her poor self-image. Perhaps if I hadn't seen the series it wouldn't have been so distracting.

I felt a bit blindsided by her poor self-image.

That was her from book one. Not so much in the TV mysteries, though.

How much angst can Lynley have without his head exploding? Barbara Havers is my favorite character, though.

Yeah. And Deb is my least favorite. I love Simon, though.

Not so much in the TV mysteries, though.

Yeah -- she's just normal looking, and a wee bit avoidant.

Is she ugly in the books, or is it in her head? I couldn't be sure from Deception, since she was battered the whole way through.

I don't think she's supposed to be ugly. Rather, frumpy, at least in her opinion. Wears hightop trainers all the time, her suits always have a hem coming undone, etc. And she wants to lose weight, I know.