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Search - What Came Before He Shot Her

What Came Before He Shot Her
Author: Elizabeth George

This bleak bit of crime fiction from bestselling mystery author Elizabeth George focuses on the preternaturally doomed Joel Campbell, a pre-teen boy with a singularly awful home life who takes it upon himself to save everyone in his family. Salvation inevitably turns to disaster, and his psychotic mother, teenaged sister, and eight-year-old brot... more »her are no help as they stumble through a world filled with abuse, drugs, and sex.The brutal, inexplicable death of Inspector Thomas Lynley's wife has left Scotland Yard searching for answers. Who is the twelve-year-old boy who pulled the trigger? What were the circumstances that led to his horrific act? That story begins on the other side of London, where the three mixed-race Campbell children are sent to live with 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. But before long, Joel has his own problems with a local gang. To protect his family, he makes 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, emotional novel that only the incomparable Elizabeth George could write.

Kirkus Reviews

How many wrong decisions can a 12-year-old make? Joel Campbell is a kid with too many responsibilities. His dad has died in the wake of a drug deal gone wrong, his mother drifts in and out of psychosis in a locked ward and his granny's decamped for Jamaica, leaving him, his in-your-face sister Ness, 15, and their loony brother Toby, 8, in a scruffy London flat with their aunt Kendra. It's up to him, Joel thinks, to make things right for everybody. But how can a 12-year-old compensate his sister for five years of abuse that's led her into drugs and indiscriminate sex? How can he be Toby's principal caregiver and protect him from gang dust-ups without admitting to his aunt that anything's wrong? And how can he stop the social worker from sending Toby into foster care; keep the guy Ness shagged, then humiliated, from taking revenge; and prevent the cops from labeling him a troublemaker when all his plans go belly-up? Inexorably, every decision Joel makes leads to tragedy. A barge fire almost immolates Toby. A gang rape turns Ness from victim to knife-wielder to convict. The bad luck stretches all the way to Belgravia, where Inspector Thomas Lynley's wife Helen meets Joel and a handgun on her doorstep. Despite a bit too much chirpy art-as-savior philosophizing, this is George's best since A Great Deliverance, her 1988 debut. Read it and weep.

ISBN-13: 9789780060541
ISBN-10: 9780060545
Rating:

Currently 3.3/5 Stars.

3.3 stars, based on 9 ratings

Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback, Audio Cassette, Audio CD
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

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Tracey W. (tracey13) reviewed What Came Before He Shot Her on 5/29/2008 + 310 more book reviews

Another facsinating book from Elizabeth George. Everyone comments on who well she writes about England and gets inside the minds of very different social groups. This time there is none of the usual aristocratic or police view point. This is lower class London at its most raw. A family struggling and failing to survive. Gripping.

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