Elizabeth George - In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

Praise for the Mastery of
ELIZABETH GEORGE

Ms. George can do it all, with style to spare.

Wall Street Journal

Elizabeth George reigns as queen of the mystery genre. The Lynley books constitute the smartest, most gratifyingly complex and impassioned mystery series now being published.

Entertainment Weekly

Like P. D. James, George knows the import of the smallest human gesture.

People

Ms. George proves that the classiest crime writers are true novelists.

New York Times

George is a master. She upholds the English tradition beautifully.

Chicago Tribune

Few novelists whose first works are greeted with unanimous acclaim are able to maintain the quality that won them initial praise, let alone show greater depth with every book. Elizabeth George, to the delight of her legion of fans, is perhaps the most notable American exception.

Richmond Times-Dispatch

P. D. James has a polished literary eloquence all her own, but George provides the same kind of sumptuous, all-out reading experience.

Los Angeles Times

Elizabeth George transcends the limitations of the crime genre.

Daily News of Los Angeles

Elizabeth George captivates us and holds us hard.

San Diego Union-Tribune

George has proved herself a master of the English mystery, with an ear for local language and an eye for the inner workings of Scotland Yard.

New York Times

None of Elizabeth Georges books is anything like another. Neither are they like anything else and no other author has a character quite as diverting as the thoroughly impossible, all-too-human Barbara Havers.

Vogue

Engrossing Although George is an American, she has made the English mystery her own over the course of the last decade.

Orlando Sentinel

Its tough to resist Georges storytelling, once hooked.

USA Today

George writes like Agatha Christie at the top of her game. A joy.

Washington Post Book World

No one else writes with the complexity, the style and the sophistication that [George] displays.

Dallas Morning News

Elizabeth George is no mere genre writer, but a novelist of the first rank.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

[Elizabeth George] delivers every time.

Denver Post

Elizabeth George weaves a rich, spellbinding web of intrigue and suspense that proves and unlocks the secrets of the heart. Awesome.

Milwaukee Journal

I wouldnt miss an Elizabeth George novel. There simply arent many detective novelists today who can write a scene of great brutality at one moment and at another write the tenderest of love scenes.

Philadelphia Inquirer

Hard to see how Georges well-textured blend of ingenious plotting, character depth and power can get any better.

Hartford Courant

Complex and fascinating Enter a new triumvirate: P. D. James, Ruth Rendell, Elizabeth George.

Armchair Detective

George excels at delivering surprises.

Baltimore Sun

George is the reigning master of the contemporary British psychological mystery.

Winston-Salem Journal

George paints her characters in loving detail.

Charlotte Observer

Elizabeth George is one of the best mystery writers today.

Daily American

Ms. George peoples her books with a cast of intriguing characters who are not always what they seem. The thoroughness of her writing is impressive. Imagery and a sense of place are her trademarks, and the seemingly disparate story lines always come together with amazing precision.

Rendezvous

ALSO BY ELIZABETH GEORGE

A Great Deliverance
Payment in Blood
Well-Schooled in Murder
A Suitable Vengeance
For the Sake of Elena
Missing Joseph
Playing for the Ashes
In the Presence of the Enemy
Deception on His Mind
A Traitor to Memory
I, Richard
A Place of Hiding

IN PURSUIT OF THE PROPER SINNER
A Bantam Book

PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam hardcover edition published September 1999
Bantam mass market edition / November 2000
Bantam trade paperback edition / April 2009

Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, evens, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved
Copyright 1999 by Susan Elizabeth George
Map by Laura Hartman Maestro

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-032503

Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

eISBN: 978-0-553-90639-4

www.bantamdell.com

v3.1

In loving memory of my father

R OBERT E DWIN G EORGE

and with gratitude for

roller-skating on Todd Street

trips to Disneyland

Big Basin

Yosemite

Big Sur

air mattress rides on Big Chico Creek

the Shakespeare guessing game

the raven and the fox

and most of all

for instilling in me

a passion for our native language

How sharper than a serpents tooth it is
To have a thankless child!

King Lear

W hat David King-Ryder felt inside was a kind of grief and a secondary dying. He felt overcome by a gloom and despair completely at odds with his situation.

Below him on the stage of the Agincourt Theatre, Horatio was reprising Hamlets Divinity That Shapes Us while Fortinbras countered with O Proud Death. Three of the four bodies were being borne off the stage, leaving Hamlet lying in Horatios arms. The castthirty strongwere moving towards one another, Norwegian soldiers coming from stage left, Danish courtiers coming from stage right, to meet up-stage from Horatio. As they began the refrain, the music swelled and the ordnancewhich hed initially argued against because of the risk of begging comparisons to the 1812boomed out in the wings. And at that precise moment, the stalls began rising beneath Davids box. They were followed by the dress circle. Then the balconies. And over the music, the singing, and the cannons, thundered applause.

This was what he had craved for more than a decade: a complete vindication of his prodigious talent. And by God, he had it before him. He had it below him and everywhere round him as well, for that matter. Three years of mind-crushing, body-numbing labour were at this moment culminating in the standing ovation that had been denied him at the conclusion of his two previous West End productions. For those extravaganzas, the nature of the applause and what followed the applause had said it all. A polite and perfunctory recognition of the cast members had preceded a hasty exodus from the theatre, which itself had been followed by an opening night party not unlike a wake. After that, the London reviews had finished what the first night word-of-mouth had begun. Two hugely expensive productions sank like concrete battleships. And David King-Ryder had the dubious pleasure of reading countless analyses of his creative decline.