Havers has a friend and neighbour, a little girl aged nine of partly Pakistani origin. When little Hadiyyah goes missing along with her mother, the girl's father is distraught and believes that his daughter has been taken by his estranged partner. It's not really Havers's job but she gets involved and even goes to a private investigator.

Next thing, someone else abducts Hadiyyah from her mother's care in Italy, and the woman immediately assumes that the girl's father is responsible and has taken the child to Pakistan. He hasn't, but where, then, is little Hadiyyah?

Braving the wrath of a female superior officer, Havers tells a tabloid newspaper about the situation so that publicity will force the British police to act. Lynley, with his smooth Italian and diplomatic ways, is foreseeably the one who is sent to act as liaison to the police in Italy. Brixton-born cop Winston Nkata makes only a couple of appearances.

In this instalment Lynley is starting to recover from the death of his wife and the interlude abroad might be just what he needs. On the other hand, given that we know the Italian scene will be a mere tangent to the whole series, it is easy to skip lightly over the pages of descriptive matter, musings of Italian police and other locals who are being questioned.

A new reader to the series should probably start a few books back, to get a handle on the personalities and situations, though each book deals with separate crimes. For those who have been following the tale, the big questions now are why is detective Barbara Havers so scruffy and heedless of authority, and will she ever clean up her act, which would make her much more likely to find a boyfriend. Maybe in the next book.

JUST ONE EVIL ACT is a lengthy read for fans of Elizabeth George and contains plenty of Italian scenes and phrases in a departure from her normal settings. I liked many aspects of the book but it's not my favourite by this author.

Book Summary