Payment in Blood - An incredibly gripping mystery featuring Lynley, now appearing on BBC1 and iPlayer

The second novel in the bestselling series that inspired BBC''s Lynley.

An isolated Scottish mansion is the venue for a reading of a controversial new play by a West End theatre company. But on the very first evening, the playwright is savagely murdered, and Inspector Thomas Lynley faces the most testing case of his career.

For one of the suspects is Lady Helen Clyde. The love of Lynley''s life.

As he attempts to untangle the family scandals, fierce theatrical rivalries and long-buried secrets that beset the case, Lynley struggles to balance the clinical detachment of his job with the intensity of his feelings.

Praise for Payment in Blood

''A treat - splendidly plotted and beautifully written''
Colin Dexter, creator of Inspector Morse

''The best novel of detection I have read in a long time. It scores on all counts: plot, pace, ingenuity, excitement and characterisation''
Ted Willis

''There is much here to solve, three detective novels'' worth in the hands of a lesser writer. In Payment in Blood, however, nothing even seems so much as cluttered''
Washington Post

''Confirms the talent on such confident display in A Great Deliverance . . . The crisp, literate narration firmly draws us in''
New York Times Book Review

''George has aptly been compared to P.D. James, and her similar attention to subtleties of character lifts this traditional whodunnit out of the ordinary''
Chicago Sun-Times