FICTION

Traumatized by the deaths of his wife and their unborn son -- shot by a 12-year-old boy in a senseless street crime -- the aristocratic Thomas Lynley, until recently a detective superintendent at New Scotland Yard, has returned to his ancestral home in Cornwall. But overwhelmed by the solicitous concern of his family, he sets out to walk the Cornish coast.

There, unshaven, unwashed and 43 days into his trip, he discovers the body of a teenage boy who apparently has fallen to the shore while cliff-climbing. Without a mobile phone, he breaks into a nearby vacation cottage to call the police.

So opens Elizabeth George's 15th series novel, the eagerly anticipated "Careless in Red," which marks Lynley's return to the center of George's meticulous and moving body of work.

At the cottage, Lynley is soon interrupted by the homeowner, veterinarian Daidre Trahair. The body is identified as that of Alexander "Sando" Kerne, and Trahair and Lynley become witnesses and suspects. Detective Inspector Bea Hannaford, working short-handed, is determined, in her crotchety way, to make use of Lynley in her efforts to sort out a dizzying array of persons of interest.

Sando was the son of Ben Kerne, who's trying to rehab an old hotel into a family-adventure site. Helping him are daughter Kerra; her boyfriend and colleague, Alan Cheston; and Ben's wife, Dellen, who, not to put too fine a point on it, is a neurotic slut. Attention also falls on another village family, the Angarracks: Lew, who makes surfboards; son Cadan, who works for the Kernes and is rarely without his parrot, Pooh; and daughter Madlyn, who had recently broken off an intimate relationship with Sando.

To make sense of the complexities, Hannaford assigns Lynley -- technically her superior, but this is her case -- to keep an eye on the secretive and reclusive Daidre and find out what she's hiding. Lynley enlists the help of his former partner, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers. With measured and skillful pacing, George lays the secrets bare -- and not only Daidre's -- in an inevitable and convincing conclusion.

But the real strength of any George novel -- her dazzling plotting notwithstanding -- is her sure-handed characterization. There's not a person in "Careless in Red" who's simply a backdrop; each is fully and carefully realized, and each is damaged, some beyond repair.

George usually incorporates an overriding theme into each of her big and meaty novels. The issue here is family -- Lynley's lost one and the Kernes' and Angarracks' particularly dysfunctional ones.

Not that family is a concept unfamiliar to George. Three years ago, she broke readers' hearts with Helen's death in "With No One As Witness." A year later, she touched them in "What Came Before He Shot Her," a deeply affecting account of the child who killed Helen. In "Careless in Red," she expands and reverts at the same time, first by focusing on the suspect families, then by bringing back Lynley. And her atmospheric prose makes the story accessible and entirely believable.

Readers who have great affection for Lynley -- and their name is legion -- will be tempted to skip ahead to learn what happens. But resist the temptation. Savor every word, every nuance, every emotion in this hypnotically readable account of a man recalled to life. As is her wont, George will wrench your heart and return it enriched.
Contact Jay Strafford at (804) 649-6698 or jstrafford@timesdispatch.com.