Calling George
speech through books.
She used to have a flat in London and would visit the UK often, but these days only gets here about once a year. For her latest book, she went to Ludlow and discovered much about police cuts, a fall in response times and the increasing dependence on community support officers. It gave her plenty of scope for a thriller.
In 30 years, there have been some changes to Lynley, but his personality remains much the same. “Lynley has grown and developed as he’s faced challenges, but the person he was in the first book — a man with a boundless source of compassion — is still there.”
So, what’s next for the popular detective? Well, in the last 30 years he has only aged by about eight years, George muses, yet has seamlessly kept up with new technology.
If Lynley were to appear on the screen again, George would rather that each book secured a longer storyline encompassing four to six episodes, to allow the intricacies of relationships and personalities which feature in her novels to shine through, rather than a stand-alone episode just focusing on the crime.
“They ended up using exactly the same format for each episode, which I objected to. At one point, five people had been murdered in one 75-minute show! I commented that we were not doing Hamlet.
“Because the books are a much bigger read than they were depicted on TV, the BBC chose to just focus on the crime itself, but there’s so much more going on in the books. I thought it would be fun for the viewers to be exposed to all those sub-plots.
“I felt that Nathaniel Parker and Sharon Small captured the essence of the characters, but I would have loved it if the BBC had done a bigger exploration of the minor characters.”
And her choice of Lynley and Havers actors for future TV adaptations?
“Over time, I’ve seen so many actors who would make good Lynleys, but they always get too famous. Watching Grantchester, I thought, ‘Oh My God, that guy [James Norton] is Lynley — if he hadn’t been the vicar in Grantchester!’ Or Luke Norris, who played Dwight Enys in Poldark. And Havers? It’s got to be Olivia Colman.”
The Punishment She Deserves by Elizabeth George is published by Hodder & Stoughton, priced £20.