In the Presence of the Enemy
In the Presence of the Enemy book cover

In the Presence of the Enemy

Mass Market Paperback – May 5, 1997

by
Price
$7.99
Publisher
Bantam
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0553576085
Dimensions
4.17 x 1.07 x 6.88 inches
Weight
11 ounces

Description

"Combining the eloquence of P.D. James with a story John Grisham would envy, George serves up a splendid, unsettling novel."— People "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 "Rich...and addictively readable...elegant and unsettling, classy and caustic...a page-turner with unusual breadth and generous depth." — USA Today "Elizabeth George only gets better...another superb British mystery."— Daily News , New York "A masterpiece."— Winston-Salem Journal "Tough, breathtaking."— Cosmopolitan "A dazzler."— New Yorker From the Publisher "Combining the eloquence of P.D. James with a story John Grisham would envy, George serves up a splendid, unsettling novel."-- People "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 "Rich...and addictively readable...elegant and unsettling, classy and caustic...a page-turner with unusual breadth and generous depth." -- USA Today "Elizabeth George only gets better...another superb British mystery."-- Daily News , New York "A masterpiece." -- Winston-Salem Journal "Tough, breathtaking."-- Cosmopolitan "A dazzler."-- The New Yorker From the Inside Flap Hailed as the "king of sleaze," tabloid editor Dennis Luxford is used to ferreting out the sins and scandals of people in exposed positions.xa0xa0But when he opens an innocuous-looking letter addressed to him at The Source, he discovers that someone else excels at ferreting out secrets as well.Ten-year-old Charlotte Bowen has been abducted, and if Luxford does not admit publicly to having fathered her, she will die.xa0xa0But Charlotte's existence is Luxford's most fiercely guarded secret, and acknowledging her as his child will throw more than one life and career into chaos.xa0xa0Luxford knows that the storyof Charlotte's paternity could make him a laughingstock and reveal to his beautiful wife and son the lie he's lived for a decade.xa0xa0Yet it's not only Luxford's reputation that's on the line: it's also the reputation--and career--of Charlotte Bowen's mother.xa0xa0For she is Undersecretary of State for the Home Office, one of the most high-profile Junior Ministers and quite possibly the next Margaret Thatcher.Knowing that her political future hangs in the balance, Eve Bowen refuses to let Luxford damage her career by printing the story or calling the police.xa0xa0So the editor turns to forensic scientist Simon St. James for help.xa0xa0It's a case that fills St. James with disquiet, however, for none of the players in the drama seem to react the way one would expect.Then tragedy occurs and New Scotland Yard becomes involved.xa0xa0Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley soon discovers that the case sends tentacles from London into the countryside, and he must simultaneously outfox death as he probes Charlotte Bowen's mysterious disappearance.xa0xa0Meanwhile, his partner Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, working part of the investigation on her own and hoping to make the coup of her career, may be drawing closer to a grim solution--and to danger--than anyone knows. In the Presence of the Enemy is a brilliantly insightful and haunting novel of ideals corrupted by self-interest, of the sins of parents visited upon children, and of the masks that hide people from each other--and from themselves. Elizabeth George’s first novel, A Great Deliverance , was honored with the Anthony and Agatha Best First Novel Awards and received the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière. Her third novel, Well-Schooled in Murder , was awarded the prestigious German prize for suspense fiction, the MIMI. A Suitable Vengeance, For the Sake of Elena, Missing Joseph, Playing for the Ashes, In the Presence of the Enemy, Deception on His Mind, In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner, A Traitor to Memory , and I, Richard were international bestsellers. Elizabeth George divides her time between Huntington Beach, California, and London. Her novels are currently being dramatized by the BBC. From the Hardcover edition. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Charlotte Bowen thought she was dead. She opened her eyes into cold and darkness. The cold was beneath her, feeling just like the ground in her mother's garden planter, where the never-stop drips from the outdoor tap made a patch of damp that was green and smelly. The darkness was everywhere. Black pushed against her like a heavy blanket, and she strained her eyes against it, trying to force out of the endless nothing a shape that might tell her she wasn't in a grave. She didn't move at first. She didn't reach out either fingers or toes because she didn't want to feel the sides of the coffin, because she didn't want to know that death was like this when she'd thought there'd be saints and sunlight and angels, with the angels sitting on swings playing harps.Charlotte listened hard, but there was nothing to hear. She sniffed, but there was nothing to smell except the mustiness all round her, the way old stones smell after mould's grown on them. She swallowed and tasted the vague memory of apple juice. And the flavour was enough to make her recall.He'd given her apple juice, hadn't he? He'd handed over a bottle with a cap that he'd loosened and shiny beads of moisture speckling its sides. He'd smiled and squeezed her shoulder once. He'd said, "Not to worry, Lottie. Your mum doesn't want that."Mummy. That was what this was all about. Where was Mummy? What had happened to her? And to Lottie? What had happened to Lottie?"There's been an accident," he'd said. "I'm to take you to your mum.""Where?" she'd said. "Where's Mummy?" And then louder, because her stomach felt liquidy all of a sudden and she didn't like the way he was looking at her, "Tell me where's my mum! Tell me! Right now!""It's all right," he'd said quickly with a glance about. Just like Mummy, he was embarrassed because of her noise. "Quiet down, Lottie. She's in a Government safe house. Do you know what that means?"Charlotte had shaken her head. She was, after all, only ten years old and most of the workings of the Government were a mystery to her. All she knew for sure was that being in the Government meant that Mummy left home before seven in the morning and usually didn't come back till after she was asleep. Mummy went to her office in Parliament Square. She went to her meetings in the Home Office. She went to the House of Commons. On Friday afternoons she held surgery for her constituents in Marylebone, while Lottie did her school prep, tucked out of sight in a yellow-walled room where the constituency's executive committee met."Behave yourself," her mother would say when Charlotte arrived after school each Friday afternoon. She'd give a meaningful tilt of her head in the direction of that yellow-walled room. "I don't want to hear a peep out of you till we leave. Is that clear?""Yes, Mummy."And then Mummy would smile. "So give us a kiss," she would say. "And a hug. I want a hug as well." And she would stop her discussion with the parish priest or the Pakistani grocer from the Edgware Road or the local schoolteacher or whoever else wanted ten precious minutes of their MP's time. And she'd catch Lottie up in a stiff-armed hug that hurt. Then she'd swat her bottom and say, "Off with you now," and turn back to her visitor, saying, "Kids," with a chuckle.Fridays were best. After Mummy's surgery, she and Lottie would ride home together and Lottie would tell her all about her week. Her mother would listen. She would nod, and sometimes pat Lottie's knee, but all the time she kept her eyes fixed to the road, just beyond their driver's head."Mummy," Lottie would say with a martyred sigh in a useless attempt to wrest her mother's attention from Marylebone High Street to herself. Mummy didn't have to look at the high street after all. It's not as if she was driving the car. "I'm talking to you. What're you looking for?""Trouble, Charlotte. I'm looking for trouble. You'd be wise to do the same."Trouble had come, it seemed. But a Government safe house? What was that exactly? Was it a place to hide if someone dropped a bomb?"Are we going to the safe house?" Lottie had gulped down the apple juice in a rush. It was a little peculiar--not nearly sweet enough--but she drank it down properly because she knew it was naughty to seem ungrateful to an adult."That we are," he'd said. "We're going to the safe house. Your mum's waiting there."Which was all that she could remember distinctly. Things had got quite blurry after that. Her eyelids had grown heavy as they drove through London, and within minutes it seemed that she hadn't been able to hold up her head. At the back of her mind, she seemed to recall a kind voice saying, "That's the girl, Lottie. Have a nice kip, won't you," and a hand gently removing her specs.At this final thought, Lottie inched her hands up to her face in the darkness, keeping them as near as possible to her body so that she wouldn't have to feel the sides of the coffin she was lying in. Her fingers touched her chin. They climbed slowly up her cheeks in a spider walk. They felt their way across the bridge of her nose. Her specs were gone.That made no difference in the darkness, of course. But if the lights went on...Only how were lights to go on in a coffin?Lottie took a shallow breath. Then another. And another. How much air? She wondered. How much time before...And why? Why?She felt her throat getting tight and her chest getting hot. She felt her eyes burn. She thought, Mustn't cry, mustn't ever ever cry. Mustn't ever let anyone see... Except there was nothing to see, was there? There was nothing but endless black upon black. Which made her throat tight, which made her chest hot, which made her eyes burn all over again. Mustn't, Lottie thought. Mustn't cry. No, no. Read more

Features & Highlights

  • Hailed as the "king of sleaze," tabloid editor Dennis Luxford is used to ferreting out the sins and scandals of people in exposed positions. But when he opens an innocuous-looking letter addressed to him at
  • The Source,
  • he discovers that someone else excels at ferreting out secrets as well.Ten-year-old Charlotte Bowen has been abducted, and if Luxford does not admit publicly to having fathered her, she will die. But Charlotte's existence is Luxford's most fiercely guarded secret, and acknowledging her as his child will throw more than one life and career into chaos. Luxford knows that the story of Charlotte's paternity could make him a laughingstock and reveal to his beautiful wife and son the lie he's lived for a decade. Yet it's not only Luxford's reputation that's on the line: it's also the reputation—and career—of Charlotte Bowen's mother. For she is Undersecretary of State for the Home Office, one of the most high-profile Junior Ministers and quite possibly the next Margaret Thatcher.Knowing that her political future hangs in the balance, Eve Bowen refuses to let Luxford damage her career by printing the story or calling the police. So the editor turns to forensic scientist Simon St. James for help. It's a case that fills St. James with disquiet, however, for none of the players in the drama seem to react the way one would expect.Then tragedy occurs and New Scotland Yard becomes involved. Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley soon discovers that the case sends tentacles from London into the countryside, and he must simultaneously outfox death as he probes Charlotte Bowen's mysterious disappearance. Meanwhile, his partner Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, working part of the investigation on her own and hoping to make the coup of her career, may be drawing closer to a grim solution—and to danger—than anyone knows.
  • In the Presence of the Enemy
  • is a brilliantly insightful and haunting novel of ideals corrupted by self-interest, of the sins of parents visited upon children, and of the masks that hide people from each other—and from themselves.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
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(1.7K)
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★★★
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Most Helpful Reviews

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A George fanatic, is speechless with this brilliance!

I have been an Elizabeth George fan since high school, as she is the wife of my former high school principal. She very simply blew me away, with this one. I was in the Phoenix airport waiting for my plane to take off in bad weather, when approaching the climax of this book. The passengers beside me must have thought me a fright, when I literally gasped a "Oh No!" This book had me so completely caught up in the moment, a freight train could have barrelled through the cab of the plane without a wince from me. I love the way Barbara Havers begins to come into her own here and as always, Detective Thomas Lynley is at his charming and sensual best. I have often said, the idea of a perfect man, is what Lynley possesses. Thank you Ms. George, for another wonderful glimpse into the Britain that I love so dearly.
25 people found this helpful
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George Bounces Back

After a disappointing turn with Playing for the Ashes, George goes back to the creativity and readability that she showed in Missing Joseph. Equally pleasing is the emphasis on Barbara Havers (for those of us who are fans of the character). The supporting characters are well-drawn and in Eve Bowen, George has designed one of the most coolly evil characters I have ever encountered. Additionally, the careful reader is rewarded with a mystery that, while not simplistic, can be figured out before the perpetrator is revealed. Like most of the Lynley/Havers novels, this one delivers.
22 people found this helpful
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"Not her best" is still better than anyone else's best

Elizabeth George is the best living writer of mysteries in the English-speaking world, period. And this book, like all the others in the Lynley-Havers series, establishes her status at the top of the rankings once again.
Thumbnail plot sketch: A child is kidnapped. The child was the result of a week-long tryst years before, and the two parents have since both risen to prominence, but in very different ways. The mother (with whom the child lives) is a prominent and ambitious Tory politician. The father is the editor of a scandal sheet. The mother wants nothing to do with the father, and his paternity has never been publicly acknowledged.
When the child is kidnapped, the kidnapper insists that the father acknowledge the child or else the child will be murdered. The father is entirely willing to agree to the demand, but the mother is not - and believes that in fact the father himself is behind the kidnapping.
To relate much more of the plot would be to spoil it for the reader. But Lynley and Havers eventually get involved in the case, and there is the usual wonderful writing, complex plot, and rich characterizations that we always get in Elizabeth George's books.
I actually think this book is slightly weaker than some of George's other work, because to me the fundamental premises don't ring true. The mother's reasons for not wanting the father to acknowledge his paternity are unconvincing (to me, anyway), and the ultimate explanation for the crime has an implausible motive. Furthermore, as a frequent reader of crime novels I get very tired of the constant portrayal of all conservative politicians as hypocritical scoundrels. Some real life conservative politicians may well BE hypocritical scoundrels. But it has gotten to the point where you know immediately upon being introduced to the character, that (s)he will turn out to be a contemptible example of humanity.
That sounds like an awful lot of complaints for a five-star book, but George is just too talented, her writing too beautiful and too intelligent, to rate this anything but five stars. And please make sure you read it all the way to the end. If you can get through the last two paragraphs without tears, then you are heartless.
11 people found this helpful
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A Who-done-it that's a cut above

Fast moving, got to like the character Barbara Havers so much. Had no idea this was part of a large series until I went to look for more titles by same author. To my mind Elizabeth George is far superior to Nora Roberts, Iris Johansen, Mary Higgins Clark, or Sue Grafton who seem too formulaic after you read George. She is just much better at drawing characters that live and breathe. You're not just reading a book about them, you're in their company.
7 people found this helpful
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A Wonderful Read -

The Inspector Lynley/Barbara Havers series is listed under mysteries but they are splendid works of fiction that happen to be mysteries. "In the Presence of the Enemy" can be read without doing the whole series but you will surely want to go back to the beginning and read all the books after you have read this one.

Elizabeth George draws her characters in well-defined strokes making them interesting and very human, even the bad guys. The private as well as the professional lives of Inspector Lynley and Barbara Havers are also very well done. He, an English lord who happens to be a police detective, and she, from what may be called the other side of the tracks, each bring their own life experiences and prejudices (especially Barbara) to their work.

A child has been kidnapped. She is the daughter of a female member of Parliament who has no trouble using the girl as a prop for her career. The father is the editor of a scandal driven newspaper who receives a note instructing him to publish the story of his "first born" or he will not get the child back. The problem is that Mom and Dad are not married, they simply got together for a sex-filled weekend during a political conference years before. Dad has never met his daughter. Making matters worse, Mom is absolutely certain that Dad is behind the kidnapping and insists he is out to ruin her career and keep her from advancing in government. Dad wants the girl safely returned but he needs to keep news of her existence from his wife and young son who are not aware of her existence.

Lynley and Havers make a delayed appearance in this story because friends are quietly called on to try and find the girl without going to the police. Politcal Mom doesn't want a scandal. Lynley is understandably furious when he discovers what has been happening.

Some of the stories in this series have been filmed and are being shown on U.S. tv. They are fine in and of themselves but the richness of the characters and the fine plotting are very much diluted in the tv versions. The book is the real treasure.
5 people found this helpful
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She's gone missing

(Paperback version.)
This mystery suspense thriller opens with the kidnapping of Charlotte, a.k.a. Lottie, a.k.a. Charlie, the ten-year old daughter of Eve Bowen, the Undersecretary of State for Britain's Home Office. Lottie, we soon discover, is the result of a brief but torrid romance with one Dennis Luxford while Eve attended a political conference eleven years previous. Now, Dennis is the editor in chief of The Source, a "tawdry and noisome" tabloid that has achieved spectacular gains in circulation by exposing the scandalous behavior of Eve's peers in the Tory government. The kidnapper is demanding that Luxford acknowledge his firstborn child on the front page of The Source. The problem is no one except Eve and Luxford are supposed to know that he is Lottie's daddy, and be it known, Eve's political career will be ruined. Certain that Luxford has staged Lottie's disappearance so he can print her humiliating disgrace, Eve hardly acknowledges that "she's gone missing." But the reader knows Dennis is innocent.
Elisabeth George develops this confused situation into an intricate and superbly plotted mystery with well-developed characters and rich dialogue. George writes in the King's (or is it the Queen's?) English, though. You might wonder what's going on when the sprat is told to shut his gob or he'll be gated for talking bosh. But then, it's a mystery isn't it.
Whether or not you're a fan of British mystery genre novels, this is a highly recommended read.
5 people found this helpful
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Top notch story, top notch mystery!

Ms. George just gets better and better. I read one of her books by accident and enjoyed it so much that I went back to the first Lynley/Havers book and am reading them in sequence. Each stands alone, but it is fun to watch the characters develop. This book is the best one yet. Complicated plot with no loose ends, well written fiction as well as a good whodunit. Definitely worth reading!
4 people found this helpful
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Lots of armchair psychology in this.

Ms. George is an intriguing writer. I kept coming back to this, even though I resented her obvious manipulations. One character, Eve Bowen, is portrayed as the most repellent mother who ever lived, a politician interested only in her own career and lacking the least shred of maternal instinct toward her child or affection for her patient, adoring husband. Nasty woman! Doesn't she deserve some comeuppance! Please. We would have got the message without the portrait being so deliberately one-sided, the consequences so utterly ruinous. On the other hand, another principal character, Dennis Luxford, turns out to be more rounded. Luxford is the editor of the sleaziest of tabloids, a former womanizer who has no idea how many illegitimate children he might have fathered, and who lives in horror that his legitimate son might be a sissy. (Luxford, you see, knows that he himself is attractive to men, though he's not "that way" himself, of course, yet it frightens him!) ... Pretty dispicable, huh? To her credit (and my surprise), Ms. George makes us like him. There are 500-plus pages of misdirection, and about 100 more of suspenseful unraveling. I read them all. Ms. George may play her readers false from time to time, but she is talented. If only she could use a lighter hand with her "bad" characters -- and refrain from so much pop psychology lavished on all of them.
4 people found this helpful
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A Jolly Good Read

I really wanted to title this review using one of Barbara Havers favorite phrases but was afraid it wouldn't make it past the censors so I substituted the word "jolly!" This is a terrific book in which Havers really comes into her own.

It starts with the kidnapping of the daughter of a member of Parliament and a demand that the child's father, a tabloid newspaper editor, acknowledge her on the front page of the paper. MP Eve Bowen, who has kept the identity of her daughter's father a closely guarded secret, believes the kidnapping is a publicity stunt and an attampt to embarass her by newspaper editor Dennis Luxford. Although Luxford is willing to run the story, Bowen refuses to allow it and also refuses to have the police called in. Even after her daughter's dead body is found, Bowen continues to insist that Luxford is responsible- a charge that is given credence when the child's glasses and some of her hair is found in Luxford's car.

Then Luxford's son is kidnapped and the kidnapper makes the same demand. This time Luxford follows the kidnapper's instructions with a front page story, only to receive a phone call telling him that he'd gotten the story wrong and that his son will be killed unless the correct story is run.

This book has some delightfully humorous dialogue between Sgt. NKarta and Inspector Lynley, but it is a terrific book for Havers, who is in charge of the investigation at the site where the little girl's body was found. She even has a little romance, which, in typical Havers fashion, she doesn't have the faintest idea how to handle.

I would like to have seen some sort of scene at the end where MP Bowen is forced to face the realization that she is largely responsible for the death of her daughter but otherwise, this is an extremely satisfying book in an excellent series.

I listened to the audio version of this book and I several times found Derek Jacobi's voice jarring and not at all a match for how I had thought the characters would sound-- however, when he read the dialogue for Havers, he had her spot on so I'm willing to forgive him for making St. James's voice much too deep. He also used very thick accents for a couple of characters that made it difficult for me to understand what they were saying, but I still managed to figure out what was going on.
3 people found this helpful
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Impossible to put down!

When the daughter of a Tory MP is kidnapped, DI Thomas Lynley and his off-sider, DS Barbara Havers are eventually brought into the case. Eve Bowen, the politician, is initially reluctant to agree to the demands of the kidnapper who insists that the well known editor of a scandal sheet newspaper admits to being the father of Eve's illegitimate child. The plot thickens, involving police, the press and members of Parliament, with some very interestingly drawn characters whom Elizabeth George paints most convincingly. I loved this book and was unable to put it down, so much so that I can't wait to get more stories involving the main characters.
2 people found this helpful

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