A burnt-out chair, a peculiar pattern
of soot on the walls, an asphyxiated corpse, two footprints, and a
collection of discarded cigarette butts bring Detective Inspector Thomas
Lynley and his partner Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers out of their
London territory and into conflict with the local investigator whose
turf they are invading. Treading carefully, they begin investigating the
ripples of shock spreading outward from the crime: from Gabriella
Pattern's husband, who knows of his wife's faithlessness and declares
himself completely indifferent, to the estranged wife of a member of the
national cricket team whose hopes for a reconciliation with her husband
have been permanently smashed; from a former lover of Gabriella who has
sworn her off to save his marriage, to an angry teenage boy whose
holiday with his father was canceled at the crook of a mistress's
finger; from a wealthy older widow whose influence has allowed a much
younger man to live his dream of playing cricket, to a former prostitute
faced with a devastating choice in the wake of a murder whose victim
she has never met and yet whose presence has long shadowed her life.
As all of England, as well and the
magnetic world of national cricket, discovers itself reeling from the
shock of this particular crime, Lynley and Havers find themselves
working on the most frustrating case of their careers: the perfect
crime. When in an act of desperation Lynley breaks department rules to
flush out the killer, he risks being pulled from the case and
jeopardizes his career with New Scotland Yard.
In Playing for the Ashes, a deft study
of human nature and a crime with too much evidence result in a powerful
work of fiction that pulls the reader into a fully created world to
explore the dark side of passion and self-delusion.
10
Paperback
Good Condition (small tear at the cover)
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