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What Came Before He Shot Her: A Lynley Novel (A Lynley Novel, 14) Paperback – April 20, 2021

by Elizabeth George (Author)
3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 1,953 ratings
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#1 New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth George delivers an explosive, "absolutely riveting" novel (Entertainment Weekly) that delves into the events leading up to the shocking murder of Inspector Lynley’s wife.

The brutal, inexplicable death of Inspector Thomas Lynley’s wife, Helen, has left Scotland Yard shocked and searching for answers. Even more horrifying is that the trigger was apparently pulled by a twelve-year-old boy.

That story begins on the other side of London in rough North Kensington, where the three, mixed-race, virtually orphaned Campbell children are bounced first from their grandmother to their aunt. The oldest, fifteen-year-old Ness, is headed for trouble as fast as her high-heeled boots will take her. That leaves the middle child, Joel, to care for the youngest, Toby. No one wants to put it into words, but something clearly isn’t right with Toby.

Before long, there are signs that Joel himself has problems. A local gang starts harassing him and threatening his brother. To protect his family, Joel ends up making a pact with the devil—a move that leads straight to the front doorstep of Thomas Lynley.

The anatomy of a murder, the story of a family in crisis, What Came Before He Shot Her is a powerful and emotional novel, full of deep psychological insights, that only the incomparable Elizabeth George could write.

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Previous page
  1. Book 14 of 21
    Inspector Lynley
  2. Print length
    560 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Harper Paperbacks
  5. Publication date
    April 20, 2021
  6. Dimensions
    5.31 x 1.26 x 8 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0062964151
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0062964151
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Elizabeth George reigns as queen of the mystery genre. The Lynley books constitute the smartest, most gratifyingly complex and impassioned mystery series now being published.” — Entertainment Weekly

“George’s best since A Great Deliverance.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“[A] dark, chilling tale of desperation and revenge.” — Booklist (starred review)

“A refreshing departure...[George] took a gamble with this one, and it pays off brilliantly.” — Time magazine

“Elizabeth George’s profoundly moving new novel seems destined to be remembered as the ultimate whydunit...George is in top form here.” — Washington Post Book World

“[A] searing examination of the lives of one horribly dysfunctional family. . . . A stinging indictment of a society unable to respond effectively to the needs of its poorer citizens.” — Publishers Weekly

“This novel resonate[s] long after the story is told.” — Globe and Mail (Toronto)

“A tour de force from a writer flexing her muscles as she’s never done before....Absolutely riveting.” — Entertainment Weekly (Grade: A)

“Dickensian in its heft, its vividness of characters and bleak London settings, and its rage at society’s faillures.” — Seattle Times

“Compels our attention and compassion. Gripping and intense, this is modern crime writing at its finest.” — Rocky Mountain News

“Another winner from the current master of the classic English mystery” — Atlantic Monthly

“George is a brilliant writer. Her characters are vivid, and her storyline moves with a seeming inevitability that allows us to believe all the unexpected turn of events.” — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“George pulls out all the emotional stops.” — Washington Times

About the Author

Elizabeth George is the New York Times bestselling author of sixteen novels of psychological suspense, one book of nonfiction, and two short story collections. Her work has been honored with the Anthony and Agatha awards, the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, and the MIMI, Germany's prestigious prize for suspense fiction. She lives in Washington State.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Paperbacks; Reprint edition (April 20, 2021)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 560 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0062964151
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0062964151
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.31 x 1.26 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 1,953 ratings

About the author

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Elizabeth George

Elizabeth George

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Elizabeth George was born Susan Elizabeth George in Warren, Ohio.

She is a graduate of University of California in Riverside. She also attended California State University at Fullerton, where she was awarded a master's degree in Counseling/Psychology and an honorary doctorate of humane letters

Professionally, she started out as a teacher. She was employed at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana initially, but there she gave in to her bent for organized labor and was summarily fired along with ten other teachers for union activity. She moved on to El Toro High School in El Toro, California (now called Lake Forest, California), where she remained for the rest of her career as high school English teacher. While employed there, she was selected Orange County Teacher of the Year, a tribute in part to the work she'd done with remedial students for nearly a decade. She left education after thirteen and a half years when she sold her first novel, A Great Deliverance, to her longtime publisher Bantam Books.

She has won the Anthony Award, the Agatha Award, and France's Le Grand Prix de Literature Policiere for her novel A Great Deliverance, for which she was also nominated for the Edgar and the Macavity Awards. She has also been awarded Germany's MIMI for her novel Well-Schooled in Murder.

Most of her novels have been filmed by for television by the BBC and have been broadcast in the US on PBS's MYSTERY. Visit her website at www.elizabethgeorgeonline.com

Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
3.9 out of 5
1,953 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Destruction of a Child
Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2024
Verified Purchase
I've held off reading this book for many years. I like this book as a clear eyed demonstration of how modern living conditions destroy people who are trying. Toby and Ivan and Dix are original. Joel is damned. Simply damned by the way things are. And you can see why. A stark and sadly engrossing novel. George can really write.
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Gay Lyn Webb
4.0 out of 5 stars Depressing read
Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2023
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I love the Inspector Lynley series. This particular novel, however, does not involve the regular characters. Instead it follows the life of the young boy accused of murdering the wife of Inspector Lynley. His life, and the lives of his siblings, is sad to say the least. This reader was left thinking it was almost inevitable that the boy should eventually be involved in an unconscionable act. Even if the outcome was not what he foresaw. This book is well thought out and the characters are interesting. But in the end it was just a sad read.
One person found this helpful
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Christine M Mitchell
5.0 out of 5 stars Realistic and heartbreaking
Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2020
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I will say at the start that I am an Elizabeth George fan. I have read her novels in order to this point, so I feel informed enough to make several observations.
1. George is an excellent writer. Her novels, though long, are detailed, well-developed, and nicely paced. Although many of them are well over 500 pages, the shift in focus from chapter to chapter engages the reader's interest and imagination.
2. George's novels are realistic in description and credible in plot development. She builds slowly on the elements of characterization and setting, so that readers can envision clearly what is going on, where it is happening, and who is doing it. (Hence, my disappointment with the BBC adaptation, casting a brown-haired actor as Lynley. He is always described as blond-haired!)
3. The preceding comments inform this last observation that THIS novel is, I think, the most realistic and heartbreaking to date. It strains credulity that a member of the peerage would be a Scotland Yard inspector. It is not only believable but certain that children grow up like Joel, Toby, and Vanessa do, in a situation lacking role models, adequate supervision, means, and support. The children make poor decisions, trust no one, and have no one to turn to as they make uninformed and desperate choices that lead to life-shattering consequences. Without giving anything away, I venture to say that I almost understood Joel's actions and forgave him for his actions in the previous novel.
Read them both, in order, and see what you think. Bravo, Ms. George!
9 people found this helpful
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Marie-Jo Fortis
3.0 out of 5 stars WE COULD HAVE DONE WITHOUT THIS ONE
Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2023
Verified Purchase
This is, so to speak, an explanation of the murder of Lynley’s wife Helen, never elucidated in the preceding novel, With No One As Witness, a complex mystery centered on the serial killing of children. Helen’s death, however, is not connected to the crimes and appears to be a random, absurd killing.

What Came Before Her is not a mystery. There is no Lynley there. And when Havers appears, it is at the very end. It is instead the portrayal of the Black and underprivileged in London. After seeing their father die in an accident ant their mother sent in a mental institution, three siblings, one sister and two brothers, are abandoned by their grandmother who chooses her lover instead of caring for her orphaned grandchildren. Their dutiful aunt, a beautiful and hardworking woman eager to get out of the drug selling, criminal milieu amid which she lives, tries to take charge and help her niece and nephews do the same.

But the children, a wounded and rebellious teenager, a mentally challenged kid protected by his loving and responsible brother, have too much baggage. There is a gang, a threat, a tension at every corner of unkempt buildings; there is prostitution exchanged against drugs; there are incapacitated social workers. There is hope at some point for all children who seem to have a chance to get out of this. Then there is the descent, more preeminent in the case of the responsible bro.

So we end up knowing what happened to Helen, but still don’t know why. It is an absurd crime, some sort of gang initiation.

But the main mystery is why E.G. wrote such a book? To create a Zola-esque novel, filled with gruesome details underlining what a prison a poor social milieu is? To show her mastery of the special language and slang used in London’s ghettos – although I can only assume it is, as I have no knowledge of their speech. I cannot say it is a bad novel; I cannot guarantee it is entirely George’s either. There are moments when it feels like someone else is writing the novel. And there are moments when lighter personal side stories such as the ones she uses when N’Kata, Havers and Lynley are there, would be needed to appease the reader.

For What Happened Before He Shot Here is dark, dark, dark.

The question then is: Could readers have done without this novel? This reader certainly didn’t need it.

4.6.2023
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Top reviews from other countries

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elizabeth sinclair
5.0 out of 5 stars Worth the second read.
Reviewed in Canada on March 22, 2019
Verified Purchase
I read it years ago, but well worth a second go. Very clever story and wrap up. Elizabeth George is a great writer.
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Catherine Piccinno
5.0 out of 5 stars Do Not Skip This Book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 12, 2020
Verified Purchase
Wow. I had actually consisered skipping this book in the series because it wasn't going to be an investigation by Lynley or his colleagues, like the other books this far.

I am so glad I didn't miss put on this experience. It was quite different to George's other titles...but similar in the quality of her writing. George has amazing insight. Every feeling that the characters had imposed upon them from the experiences thrown at them, seemed so spot on, but also written about in such a way that I felt these feelings too. I felt the anger, the hope, but mostly the despair.

The environment in the book that brought about the situations Joel and his family found themselves is real for some people. The story promoted a lot of thoughts for me and discussions with friends and family about real children caught up in similar situations, and what is the answer. How do they get out of this?

I have been so touched by this book (and in my mind of things working out, I want Lynley to read it so he can understand why Helen was shot!)
One person found this helpful
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Sue Finnerty
5.0 out of 5 stars BACKGROUND STORY INTO HELEN LYNLEY'S DEATH
Reviewed in Australia on March 18, 2024
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I enjoyed it, although it was a bit depressing. I read it primarily because it was part of the series and it fitted well into the events surrounding Helen Lynley's death. There was no Lynley and Winnie and Barbara only appeared at the end following on from the previous book. Although the main characters had good intentions fate was really against them. The "gangsta" language added to the story. In the overall series It's worth persevering.
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Marisa
1.0 out of 5 stars I felt shortchanged
Reviewed in Spain on August 7, 2017
Verified Purchase
I bought the book thinking of it as a new mistery novel with Inspector Lynley as starring. What I found is a sociological study on the miserable living conditions in London and how these conditions direct the individual to crime. Frankly, I buy fiction because I want to relax my mind, otherwise I'd buy a newspaper.
Mostly, I like Elizabeth George's novels though I must say sometimes the argument is dispersed so much that I find it necessary to go back in order to place the secondary characters in their context. I like it when the characters are well defined, but getting to the point of walking with them street by street or making the shopping item by item is exhaustive, especially when neither the streets nor the shopping have anything to do with the plot of the novel.
This book should not be announced in the series of Lynley's books, but a spin-off. And it's boring!!
3 people found this helpful
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marina c.
1.0 out of 5 stars Spoiler!
Reviewed in Italy on December 28, 2016
Verified Purchase
Purtroppo meno appassionante degli altri, forse per la mancanza dei soliti protagonisti della serie. Dovrebbe dare una visione diversa delle motivazioni dietro all'omicidio di Hellen, ma si perde un po'.
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