Product Description

Deborah and Simon St. James have taken a holiday in the winter landscape of Lancastershire, hoping to heal the growing rift in their marriage. But in the barren countryside awaits bleak news: The vicar of Wimslough, the man they had come to see, is dead—a victim of accidental poisoning. Unsatisfied with the inquest ruling and unsettled by the close association between the investigating constable and the woman who served the deadly meal, Simon calls in his old friend Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley. Together they uncover dark, complex relationships in this rural village, relationships that bring men and women together with a passion, with grief, or with the intention to kill. Peeling away layer after layer of personal history to reveal the torment of a fugitive spirit, Missing Joseph is award-winning author Elizabeth George's greatest achievement.


From the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #247660 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-15
• Released on: 2008-04-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The title of this layered, intricate mystery could refer to the husband and father rarely included in paintings of the Madonna and Child or to an infant victim of crib death 15 years before the grim winter of the story's setting. Both possibilities resonate as George's forensic analyst Simon St. James and Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley of New Scotland Yard, both last seen in For the Sake of Elena , unravel a case that embraces issues of sexuality, procreation and familial love. In Lancashire, in gray, bone-chilling December, the vicar of Winslough is found poisoned by water hemlock, which was served--in an apparent accident--by an herbalist, a solitary woman whose sexually precocious daughter the vicar had been counseling. Simon and his wife Deborah, troubled by their failure to conceive a child, take a long week-end at Winslough in January and are drawn into village gossip about the death, which Simon doubts could have been unintended. Irregularities in the local police follow-up (the constable is sleeping with the herbalist) prompt him to call on Tommy to reopen the case. Probing relationships between lovers and between parents and children (notable here are those between the constable and his retired-copper father, between the vicar's housekeeper and her mom, both schooled in the local witch tradition), George sustains suspense as Tommy traces the vicar's death back through London to a long-ago suicide near Truro. A liberal dose of unhappiness widely applied and a tendency to talkiness are easily tolerable in this deftly plotted, highly atmospheric novel. Author tour.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
'She writes extremely well, plots brilliantly and reaches an emotional level deeper than most ... Captivating' -- The Times 'Splendid writing ... the mystery is a very good one' -- Sunday Telegraph 'Superbly constructed ... George wastes not a single strand of her virtuoso plot' -- Scotsman

Review
"A totally satisfying mystery experience."—Denver Post

"[George] proves that the classiest crime writers are true novelists."—The New York Times

"Layered, intricate...deftly plotted, highly atmospheric."—Publishers Weekly

"Perhaps Ms. George's most satisfying puzzle yet...this rich, intricate novel is a perfect choice for anyone in the market for first-rate summer fiction."—The Sun, Baltimore


From the Paperback edition.

Customer Reviews

An Entertaining Read
I couldn't put Elizabeth George's "Missing Joseph" down. This is the first of this author's novels I have read, and I don't think it will be the last. In the tradition of P.D James, George is a master of fully developing all her characters, whether they be suspects or detectives. Yet George spends less time on description and more on action than James does, and so her book moves a bit faster than James's do. The characters are complex, moving, and three-dimensional. I found myself on the verge of tears several times at the plights of Polly Yarkin and Maggie Spence, and even the rather scheming and unsympathetic village constable manages to arouse my pity more than once. Deborah and Simon St. James have come to Lancashire, a small British village, for a holiday. However, the vicar Deborah had hoped to visit while there has died under suspicious circumstances. Simon summons Inspector Thomas Lynley, a British aristocrat turned CID agent, to unofficially investigate. The plots and subplots are complex and intricately woven, but in such a deft and craftsmanlike way that I never lost track of the goings-on, nor did I become bored with any of the plot lines. The obligatory red herrings are dragged across the reader's path, and the solution to the mystery comes as a shocking surprise. Unexpected though it is, the dénouement is my one complaint with this otherwise excellent book. After the fascinating character studies and excellent plotting, the solution to the mystery seems contrived and artificial; it is a "rabbit out of a hat" solution which relies on revelations which are simply narrated. The reader had no real chance to deduce them from clues hidden throughout the book. Nevertheless, it was interesting enough to keep me turning the pages to find out what happened next. An excellent yarn to curl up with on a rainy weekend!

Love, Attraction, Lust and Motherhood, with No Apple Pie!
Missing Joseph is a powerful story about what it means to be a human being, a parent, a lover, a friend, a daughter and someone who misuses others. While there is a mystery in the book, the story itself transcends the mystery. The detection involved is skillfully designed to help illuminate Ms. George's main subjects.

The characters involved build on past novels by looking more deeply into the relationships between Simon and Deborah St. James, Thomas Lynley and Lady Helen Clyde, and Barbara Havers and her mother. To extend those themes in new directions, Ms. George adds several new characters who are tied together by tragedy. These characters include a widowed local constable, an Anglican vicar, the vicar's witchcraft-practicing housekeeper, a reclusive provider of potions from herbs and her daughter. Seldom will you discover a book that develops so many characters in so many dimensions in one book. I found myself staying up past 1 a.m. to finish the story, and would have gone later had it been necessary.

As the book opens, the vicar raises a fundamental question that resonates throughout the book: Where's Joseph? Originally asked in connection to the many images of Jesus and Mary, that question takes on haunting new meanings before the book ends.

Even if you have never read another book in this distinguished series, I'm sure you would find this book to be a rewarding choice.

Disappointingly unbelievable
I found that the characters in this mystery about murder, kidnapping and confused identity never seemed realistic. The two aristocratic detectives and their wives just seem ridiculous -- the men (whose personalities are indistinguishable from each other) are absurdly old-fashioned and sexist and the women, Helen and Deb, are childish and self-indulgent. Juliet Spence is so psychologically cruel to her daughter Maggie that it's hard to read, not to mention hard to believe. The village constable, reminded of something he'd rather forget, freaks out and rapes a woman, even though he's supposedly never raised a hand in anger since protecting his mother from his father years before. Whatever. Suffice to say, none of the characters here behave in a believable fashion. Even minor characters' reactions just seem off, somehow. The plot, at root an interesting one, is convoluted and buried in detail which makes it very hard to follow. I repeatedly found myself thinking "*what*...*who* are we talking about again?" The setting is also strange: it's supposed to be taking place in the 1980's or 90's, it seems, but many of the attitudes seem decades older. Lynley, the detective lordling, actually has a manservant, and his girlfriend Helen has a maid! (Maybe British nobility really do still have bodyservants in the modern day, but it seems bizarre, and certainly helps to keep me from sympathizing with the characters.)Attitudes toward women here, overall, seem trapped in around the 1930's. The novel is a lot of work, and I don't really think it's worth it.