The latest in the Inspector Lindsay mysteries finds Tommy and his crew up in the Lake District investigating the untimely death of Ian Cresswell, who was largely raised by his uncle, Bernie Fairclough, a self-made industrial tycoon famed for the “Fairloo,” an upscale toilet. Cresswell came out to his wife and young son and daughter a few years previously and had been living with a young Pakistani man. Son Tim is having a hard time of it and is enrolled in a school for troubled teens. That Bernie’s son, and presumptive heir to the family fortune, is a recovering addict casts suspicion his way – Bernie always seemed to favor his nephew. But almost nothing is as it seems in Cumbria. Tommy, Deborah and Simon delve deeper into long held family secrets, while Barbara Havers helps out from London while dealing with her own problems with the new head of the department, Isabelle, who is secretly having an affair with Lynley. In addition to being commanded to reinvent herself with new clothes, hairdos and attitudes, Havers is also coping with the reappearance the girlfriend of her neighbor and friend, Taymullah Azhar, and mother of his daughter Hadiyyah. As many feel, the series has suffered after the death of Helen a couple of books back, but the good news, perhaps, is that the cliffhanger ending leads one to believe that the always engaging Barbara Havers will be central to the next installment. 624 pp.
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