With No One As Witness

Elizabeth George's books run hot and cold for me. With No One As Witness was lukewarm.  The mystery to be solved was interesting in the beginning but I got bogged down in all of the British words that I did not know the meaning of. The book read slowly for me.  At 627 pages, this book qualifies as a selection for the Chunkster Challenge.

The publisher's summary is below:  

"When an adolescent boy's nude body is found draped over a tomb in a graveyard, the police recognize the work of a serial killer who's been murdering boys in London.  This is the killer's fourth victim but the first to be white.  Hoping to avoid charges of institutionalized prejudice in their failure to pursue the earlier crimes to their conclusion, New Scotland Yard takes the case and hands it over to Detective Constable Barbara Haverstraw and Detective Sergeant Winston Natalie.  The killer is a psychopath who does not intend to be stopped.  But a devastating tragedy within their ranks causes the police to fumble in their pursuit, which may bring more fatal consequences."

This is a slow moving book. In addition to all of the unfamiliar British words, the abundance of descriptions made this book painfully slow. For example, an entire page may contain only a description of what a character wore or what a room or street looked like. Put two or three of these pages together and you get a bored reader. The author's note at the conclusion of the story states she is an American writing a novel set in England. I would never have guessed she was American. In fact, I thought that the book may have been written for a European audience. The plot was lost amidst this backdrop.

A disappointing read. 2 out of 5 stars.