OK, so this book and #10 "In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner" are not my favorites in the series. Maybe it's the relentless sordidness of both stories. And maybe I held out a little better in #10 because there was a lot of focus on Inspector Lynley, due to his acquaintance with the father, and on Havers, due to her efforts to mend fences with the Inspector.
#11 has a nice bit with DS (or is he a DC still?) Nkata, which I appreciated, but you spend an awful lot of time inside Gideon Davies' head, dealing with his messed-up family. I guess I wanted to see more of our heroes.

Superb. Seldom do I read books with 1000+ pages. A Traitor to Memory is compelling -- I read much later into the night than I intended. Character development is deep and wide. Every word essential. Memorable passages: Chap. 6 - "Life wasn't a continuum of events, although it wore the guise of exactly that. Instead, it was actually a carousel. In infancy, one mounted a galloping pony and started out on a journey during which one assumed that circumstances would change as the expedition continued. But the truth of life was that it was an endless repetition of what one had already experienced...round and round and up and down on that pony. Unless one dealt with whatever challenges one was meant to deal with along the route, those challenges appeared again and again in one form or another till the end of one's days." End of Chap 19: "It's odd, isn't it?" she said to me. "One can earnestly believe one has a particular type of relationship with another person, only to discover it was never what one thought in the first place." Chap 21: How our pasts define our presents, Leach thought now. We're not even aware that it's happening, but every time we reach a conclusion, make a judgement, or take a decision, the years of our lives are stacked up behind us : all those dominoes of influence that we don't begin to acknowledge as part of defining who we are. Chap 22: "The relationship between fathers and sons is always complicated," Lynley said. "More than mothers and daughters?" (Barbara Havers asks) "Indeed. Because so much more goes unspoken." Chap 28: I've learned that things work out the way they're meant to work out no matter what we want, so its best to keep our wants to a minimum and to thank our stars, our luck, or our gods that we've been given as much as we have. Chap 29 - Nkata: And down below at what went for the garden, the grass and flower beds of ancient times were now an expanse of mud across which lager cans, take-away food wrappers, disposable nappies, and other assorted human detritus made an eloquent statement about the level of frustration and despair that people sank to when they believed -- or their experience taught them -- that their options were limited by the colour of their skin.

Whew that was a chunkster, and I loved EVERY MINUTE OF IT.

A convoluted mystery told in a convoluted way.

This was my least favorite of George's reads. It went on forever. The two narrative styles did not fit. I already guessed at who did what and it was a long winding road to get there. The Webberly thing read as ridiculous after a while. Lynley is even more of an ass in this one. It felt like a lot of things happened without a lot of police work to get people to where they needed to go.

I liked the book focusing on memory and what we remember as being accurate or false. But after a while I just didn't care. We have Lynley asked to investigate, when a former woman who is known by Webberly and other former New Scotland Yard forces is found dead by a hit and run. The woman's young daughter was drowned years ago and now after she is found dead people wonder what was it that caused her death. When more people connected to that case start being found dead, Lynley, Winston, and Havers are put on the case to figure out who is running people down.

Lynley of all people doesn't follow prior characterizations when he decides to hide something important on a case. Havers of all people points out to him how dumb this is. I maybe laughed a bunch of times considering the last book. St. James, Deborah, and Helen are barely in this one. They just seem to come on stage for Lynely's character and that's it. Winston's story-line was weird, I don't know what George was going for there, but it felt....off. I don't even know what else to say without spoilers.

The writing was not good in this one I am sorry to say. George using a diary style format for a character told in the first person didn't work with the narrative style being told via third person point of view. Also, the diary style was way too long. It kept taking me out of the story. I started to skim after a while since I could guess what happened since George practically points a red arrow at the guilty party(ies).

The flow was awful due to the narrative style. We also have a wrench thrown in via Lynley and Helen's marriage that had me dislike Lynley even more. At this point the man just wants a mannequin, not a wife.

The ending left too many plot holes I assume will be resolved in the next book or the one after. I don't know...I started off enjoying these, but I noticed a drop off between this book and the last one. And I have been warned there is another one that is going to tick me off and the quality is going to be really bad. So I may stop here, I don't know.

2 ½ stars, if we could do that here.

a bit iffy about this one. george loves the convoluted, which is great for keeping readers turning the pages, trying to unspool the threads. but i do feel, sometimes, that too much goes on in some of her stories - and i felt that was the case with this one, book #11 in the series. there are, of course, the crimes to contend with, and the cast of characters connected to them. and out it goes, and out it goes until everyone involved has their own tale as well; it wasn't quite as smooth-going for me. as well,

Spoiler

the portrayal of the disabled as monsters, 'freaks', not fit for living was, i feel, not handled well at all.

the voice of gideon was a challenge, and the back-and-forths between his journal entries, and the investigative side of the story were clunky and abrupt. as with a previous instalment, some characters/storylines were introduced in book #11, but were never brought to any kind of resolution; they were just kind of left undone.

Spoiler

a) webberley (though maybe his outcome is in the next book, his personal circumstances and his wife's illness opens a whole new can of something. b) eugenie's boyfriend-neighbour really fell by the wayside. c) katya, cleared of the crimes but that whole piece of the story - her taking the fall 20 years ago - was not resolved in any way meaningful for katya. d) jill and richard. i mean, obviously he's done for, but jill is way out in left field by the end of the book. e) libby and gideon... again, there was a conclusion, but it didn't feel like an ending or a resolution, just more conflict.

so... i guess my least favourite in the series, so far. the pluses, though: havers and lynley back together; more of winston. the disappointments: very little with the st. jameses, nothing at all with hadiyya and taymullah. but, onward we go...

Wow… this novel is a massive undertaking, and an incredible tale. Elizabeth George uses multiple perspectives, time jumps and different narrators to weave a dark tale of family secrets and hidden sins… her best so far!!

At 1,000 + pages, I wanted more Lynley and Havers than it had.

I want to fall in love with Elizabeth George. With dozens of books under her belt, she'd be the perfect author to go back to time and again for a good read. But I am losing faith. This is the 3rd book of hers I have read and and it was the worst so far. I like a long book. But length should either result in deep character development or ridiculous/funny/detailed description. Unfortunately George uses length just to repeat the same few ideas/plot points over and over. So it gets really boring.

I am also really tired of her police characters engaging in professionally unethical behavior. It just doesn't seem necessary for them to do their jobs and it raises too many questions about their deeper motivations that George never bothers to answer.

Last but not least, I now have enough perspective to know that shifting points of view are George's thing. And I've also read two in a row now where in addition to multi-person omniscient narration, George intersperses a first-person account (in this case a journal) throughout.

This is really annoying.

All in all, a disappointment. But I will keep trying.