Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Payment in Blood
    Payment in Blood
    Payment in Blood
    Audiobook14 hours

    Payment in Blood

    Written by Elizabeth George

    Narrated by Davina Porter

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The producer of a troubled play invites the cast to spend the weekend in his remote Scottish Highlands estate to hash out the problems. When the housemaid finds the playwright murdered in bed, Thomas Lynley and his partner must unmask the villain.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateNov 8, 2013
    ISBN9781490607788
    Payment in Blood
    Author

    Elizabeth George

    Elizabeth George is the New York Times bestselling author of sixteen novels of psychological suspense, one book of nonfiction, and two short story collections. Her work has been honored with the Anthony and Agatha awards, the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, and the MIMI, Germany's prestigious prize for suspense fiction. She lives in Washington State.

    More audiobooks from Elizabeth George

    Related to Payment in Blood

    Titles in the series (2)

    View More
    View More

    Related audiobooks

    Suspense For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Karin Slaughter

      Jul 2, 2020

      This American crime author has sold more than 35 million copies of her books globally. This month she’s celebrating the release of her 20th novel in as many years. It’s also the 10th book in special agent Will Trent’s series. “It feels really great a

      1 min read

    • Article

      'Glass Houses' Is Yet Another Excellent Louise Penny Mystery

      Sep 7, 2017

      Penny – whose books wind up on Best Novels of the Year lists, not 'just' Best Mysteries – is a one-woman argument against literary snobbery.

      2 min read

    • Article

      5 Crime Must-Reads for July

      Jun 29, 2017

      5 Crime Must-Reads for July
      2 min read

    • Article

      ‘A Better Man’ Shows Louise Penny At Her Compelling Best

      Sep 5, 2019

      Her Three Pines mystery series, with Inspector Gamache, is a rare one that becomes more interesting the longer it goes on.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Marmalade Addicts – The Queen, Paddington And Me

      Mar 8, 2023

      ‘If, at some future period of the world's history, men should acquire the art of flying, there can be no doubt that migration would become the custom, and whole nations would change their localities,' wrote Richard Jefferies in 1883. Seville is in my

      3 min read

    • Article

      The PROMISE

      Aug 18, 2021

      The PROMISE
      9 min read

    • Article

      Love will WIN

      Sep 6, 2023

      Love will WIN
      9 min read

    • Article

      Bel voir Castle

      Apr 6, 2023

      Bel voir Castle
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Ghosts Of Nativities Past

      Dec 2, 2020

      LAST weekend, Zam went to collect a second-hand fridge. The sellers weren’t expecting him until the following day, so he had to leave empty-handed, with the ratchet straps, the flatbed transit he’d borrowed and the young cousin he’d enlisted to help.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Drawn to THE MOORS

      Feb 8, 2022

      Drawn to THE MOORS
      11 min read

    • Article

      A Story For Our Times

      Dec 29, 2021

      ROBINSON CRUSOE is a lockdown story, as are most Golden Age detective novels, set in remote country houses: Jane Eyre and Rogue Male, but Stella Gibbons, wrote the lockdown story for our age. Born in 1902, she was the eldest of three children whose f

      2 min read

    • Article

      Magnets: Carried through time, lovers seek their purpose.

      Feb 6, 2014

      Moon Colony B, 2213 Former Ponzi-schemer Mary Pillar digs through a trashcan. It smells like rotten eggs and milk. She is elderly and homeless, living in an alley between two eco-efficient skyscrapers. Dust particles dance around her. She has lost ev

      11 min read

    • Article

      Plenty Of Room At The Inn

      Dec 14, 2022

      Plenty Of Room At The Inn
      4 min read

    • Article

      Forever Wild

      Oct 1, 2018

      When I think of the Scarborough house, I remember the wind whipping through my salt-hardened curls and my little-girl feet bare and crusted with sand as I run through its heavy wooden doors. I was four and wild as the landscape itself. My grandparent

      3 min read

    • Article

      Nothing to Declare

      Jun 15, 2019

      All the senior partners were having a laugh about a movie they’d seen. Forty-Five Years. Something, something about the movie taking forty-five years to sit through. The woman McGuinness thought he recognized was in it with them at the far end of the

      24 min read

    • Article

      Summer Reading Guide

      Jan 2, 2022

      Summer Reading Guide
      6 min read

    • Article

      Riveting Reads

      May 26, 2023

      REBECCA BY DAPHNE DU MAURIER The two films made of Rebecca (1940 and 2020) are captivating, but for a journey of the imagination nothing beats reading Daphne du Maurier’s compelling tale of passion and intrigue set on the Cornish coast. The author fe

      2 min read

    • Article

      Pubs With Eerie Pasts

      Sep 9, 2022

      Pubs With Eerie Pasts
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Karoo Rocks

      Sep 10, 2021

      The Karoo Rocks
      9 min read

    • Article

      On The Bookshelf

      Apr 29, 2022

      This is the Night They Come For You by Robert Goddard Published by Bantam Press Price £20 Pages 416 ISBN 9781787635081 Based on actual events in Paris in 1961, and Algeria’s long and painful road to independence, this first-rate, well researched thri

      4 min read

    • Article

      A Village Affair

      Jul 14, 2021

      AS an attentive aunt, Jane Austen was keen to encourage her niece, Anna, with the novel she was writing. ‘Three or four families in a country village is the very thing to work on,’ she wrote to her in 1814, adding, ‘such a spot… is the delight of my

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Goldilocks Effect

      Sep 9, 2022

      The Goldilocks Effect
      16 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Payment in Blood

    4/5

    646 ratings27 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      A London theatre group of actors visits Scotland for the weekend to stay at the director's sister's manor house turned hotel. The next morning the playwright is found stabbed to death in her bed with the door locked. Strangely, Scotland Yard is called in almost immediately and Lynley and Havers take over the case.The story starts off slowly and at first I was rather disappointed. Having really enjoyed A Great Deliverance I expected more than the Agatha Christie-like British cozy atmosphere of the first 100 pages. However, at page 99 (in my book) the case took a turn and it became the first of many twists and turns in the mystery. Also, the plot revolved heavily around the British class system which I found tedious. I really don't like the character of Helen. Every time she speaks I ask myself "Do people really speak like this?" And if a 'Lady' really does speak that way how could someone of Lynely's supposed intelligence fall for such pretense?Ultimately I'm of two minds with this book. I did enjoy it, but it's certainly not as good as A Great Deliverance. The mystery itself was fun and I enjoyed the supporting cast of characters. While I did find parts of it tedious it's not enough to deter me from trying the third book in this series. We'll see if I continue with the series after that
    • 3/5
      Great development of the primary series characters, but the closed-house mystery is overdone.
    • 4/5
      A theater company retreats to a remote estate in the Highlands to prepare for the opening of an upcoming play. As work begins it quickly becomes clear proposed changes will be hotly contested. When the playwright gets a knife in her neck while in her locked bedroom, Scottish authorities call the Yard for assistance. Much to their displeasure Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and Seargant Barbara Havers are sent to investigate. When Lynley arrives he is astounded to find his close friend Helen Clyde with a man she's entered a new relationship with. The fact that jealousy affects Lynley's investigation goes a long way in humanizing the great detective. Though there are many characters and plot twists the author handles them smoothly and continues to sublety develop her recurring characters. This is just the second in the Lynley series and I'm more interested in following Lynley and Havers through the remaining eighteen than I was after reading the first.
    • 4/5
      Payment In Blood (1990) (Insp. Lynley #2) by Elizabeth George. What a tangled web we weave… This book, like so many of Elizabeth George’s novels tend to do, begins slow, spreading out a vast cast of characters and setting the scenery firmly in place. Here we have a murder within a troupe of thespians as they have gathered to prepare for a forthcoming play. The playwright is murdered in a “locked room” mystery and Lynley and Havers are dispatched to the Scottish Highlands to solve the case.There is a great deal of backstory here and, while it slows the action it deepens the plot. Not only are the actors involved, but a few of their relations, townsfolk and at least one problematic son. A forbidden romance is quashed. Lynsey, the 8th Earl of… whatever, is sent primarily to shepherd Lord Stinhurst, a peer of the realm, away from the eyes of the local police. Havers is there to throw a spanner into the Scot’s police investigation and to aggravate Lynley. Not the best of the series but once it gets some traction there is no stopping it. This is a nice series while waiting for the problems of the world to abate. The books are lengthy but that should not be a deterrent.
    • 3/5
      I had a very hard time keeping these characters straight, so even though there was only a set number of possible murderers, I was constantly mixing them up. Still, it was impossible to figure out "who done it" until the actual culprit was revealed. Elizabeth George has a real penchant for obscure vocabulary words, but part of the benefit of reading on a Kindle is that I can immediately look them up. I can't decide whether I enjoy finding these new old words, or I'm slightly annoyed by them. Since I watched the PBS series long before I read any of the books, Lynley will forever have the dark hair of Nathaniel Parker, the actor who plays him. And Havers, thank god, had a real makeover in the series from the homely Havers of George's imagination. And I prefer her to look like Sharon (don't know her name) from the series. Will I read another? Yes
    • 4/5
      The second Havers/Lynley mystery has a swirl of theater people that are a little hard to keep track of. All the usual class clashings and emotional melodrama that I've liked so far about this series... I don't typically read mysteries, but somehow this one is appealing.
    • 3/5
      3.5 stars

      The plot was decent enough, although the ending wasn't terribly surprising. I knew it wasn't going to be either Stinhurst or Davies-Jones, because that was rather obviously the point. I really enjoy the characters and their complex relationships though. St. James immediately found a special place in my heart (either he wasn't in the TV series or I forgot about him). That was also part of what the second half of the book really pick up and create some satisfying tension. The other reason that this book doesn't score higher for me, apart from a certain level of predictability and some cliché's, is that it is so very obviously written by an American. This is not how the UK or the British class system work; even though I've only lived there for a handful of years it felt very off and made the book a lot more jarring than it needed to be. However I've heard that both of those issues improve quite a lot in the later books, so if I see another Lynley lying around I'll certainly pick it up.
    • 4/5
      Smashing British murder mystery in the style of Agatha Christie, in which relationships are complicated and everyone is a suspect.
    • 4/5
      A playwright is brutally murdered while staying at a Scottish castle turned hotel. The potential suspects were all involved with the play she was writing. Inspector Lynley and Sergeant Havers are called on the scene to assist in the investigation and their personal prejudices come into play when they look at the suspects at hand.This book was a fun twist of the "locked room" mystery trope. Although the suspect pool was by default narrow, it was still anyone's guess for most of the book who the murderer was. There were a few places here and there where the text dragged a bit, but overall interesting characters and settings held my attention. The book is more on the "cozy" side of the mystery genre, but there is a bit of gore and other salacious details scattered throughout.
    • 4/5
      All I know about Inspector Lynley has been gleaned from public television. Shout out for PBS. I can’t swear to it but I may have found this book in a bag my parents acquired from their very frequent bookstore raids. I can say: when you have a family of readers, you are never at a loss for a good book. This one sat in the pile for a long time. Note to editors and publishing houses – covers matter. The cover was a real turn off which was the off putting feature. It looks like a little old lady’s romance on the outside. But inside? Fantastic.This read like any of the very best that Agatha Christie or PD James have written. A classic mystery in the fact that a theatre troupe, in an old house converted to an inn located in the Scottish hills, is locked down after one of their number is murdered. Inspector Lynley is called in from New Scotland Yard to investigate. He has some personal issues with this investigation which may impinge on his impartiality.But, the investigation must go on and it does with many blind ends, twists, turns and a surprise finish that can’t be predicted like so many of these types of books. I too, like other readers started reading the series at number 2. This does not deter the reader because background is provided as one reads on. If number 2 is this good, I can’t imagine how much better they get going forward. The writing will only improve and the details will only get crisper and the story lines more complex. Don’t let the cover fool you. This is no old lady book. It’s a great read for every mystery fan.
    • 4/5
      Payment in Blood is the second book in the long running Thomas Lynley/Barbara Havers Scotland Yard mysteries by Elizabeth George. This novel is an interesting mixture of a big-country-house mystery in the tradition of Agatha Christie and a much deeper study of the way that humans can hurt each other and fool themselves.

      A charming and elegant Scottish country inn is hosting their first guests, a famous theatrical producer and the stars, writer and director of the new play he is preparing. Later that night after everyone was seen arguing in the living room, the playwright is found murdered in her locked bedroom. When DI Thomas Lynley and his partner Sgt. Barbara Havers are sent to the scene in a highly irregular decision by their superiors at New Scotland Yard, the playwright's murder appears to have far reaching implications. It has personal implications for DI Lynley, who is shocked to find Lady Helen Clyde among the guests. As the complex plot unfolds, Lynley and Havers view the principal suspect from distinctly different, and class-based, points of view. The issue of social class is a continuing element of this series and the cast of regular characters continues to be developed.

      This is a compelling and well written murder mystery. The complex personal relationships are contributing factors to the case as the story unfolds. There are lots of characters and at the beginning I found it difficult to keep them straight but once I was about twenty percent into the book I was completely under the spell of the story. I'm definitely planning to read more of this series and the two intriguing main characters.

    • 4/5
      Well-plotted country house murder-mystery. A theatrical group are brought together to a remote house in Scotland to rehearse a play. When one of them is murdered Lynley is brought in to investigate, hampered by the fact that the woman he loves and her lover are amongst the suspects.The novel was so obsessed with class and titles I checked the publication date, and was surprised it was 1989, I would have guessed early '50's by its antiquated atmosphere.
    • 4/5
      Payment in Blood. Elizabeth George. 1989. This is the second book in the DI Thomas Lynley series and I am hooked and absolutely delighted to have over ten more to read! I’ll space them out like I am with the Camilla Lackberg’s Swedish mysteries. Lynley and his prickly partner, Barbara Havers are sent to Scotland to investigate the murder of a playwright. The play’s director and all the actors have assembled in an ancient manor house. To add to the plot and the tension, Lady Helen, Lynley’s dear friend was in the bedroom next to the murdered playwright. George has been compared to P.D. James and Agatha Christie and she holds up to the comparison.
    • 4/5
      It was okay. It was a bit much to believe that Lynley could be so human as to fit the clues to the solution, but on the other hand, it moved the series forward at a good pace. One can see that it is not as critical that the books be read in order as it might have been assumed.
    • 4/5
      A solid followup to "A Great Deliverance." I enjoyed reading the second Inspector Lynley installment, though there were a handful of side story lines which I think would make excellent books as well. It felt slower than AGD at points, but still had me hooked enough to read within two days. Bravo to Ms. George on another good read.
    • 4/5
      Closed-room English-style murder mystery set in a Scottish inn. A vast number of characters; I needed notes to keep them straight. Further develops George's interest in the prejudices of class, which this time both help and hinder the investigation. Both Lynley and Havers fall victim to their blind spots, but manage together to solve the case. The love story and its complications are less interesting, as usual. Good Masterpiece Theatre treatment as well, with a very young James McEvoy and (surprise!) Idris Elba.
    • 4/5
      The second chronologically in the Lynley/Havers books. The pair are sent to Scotland to investigate a grisly murder that happens when a group of actors go to a new B and B to work on a play. Another murder takes place while there. As is typical of these mysteries, the plots are intricate and often hard to follow because different stories intertwine so. It all comes together in the end, however, in a masterful and clear way. Lynley gets personally involved in this one, something that clouds his judgment. Fortunately, Havers is there to keep it all straight.
    • 4/5
      I really loved and was moved by the first Inspector Lynley mystery by Elizabeth George, A Great Deliverance. I know that when I first read it some years ago, I then read several of the next books in the series, of which Payment in Blood is the second. Yet, unlike A Great Deliverance, which I still found memorable and impressive on second read, I really couldn't recall Payment in Blood at all even after finishing. Nor did this come close to moving me to tears as the first novel did, so I'd say this doesn't quite match the earlier book.Yet, on reading this, what struck me was just what a good writer I find Elizabeth George and how enjoyable it was reading her novel. The narrative really flows, the prose style is clean and more literate than what you usually find on the mystery aisle of the bookstore. George, like me, is an American, so I can't really know if she gets the details of British culture right, but it certainly is a skilful enough facsimile of the classic British murder mystery (of the locked room variety and set in a Scottish manor no less) to fool me.I also like the recurring characters of Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers. Both are interesting in their own right and especially in contrast and partnered together. Lynley is the wealthy titled suave golden boy, and Havers the dumpy working class gal with a bit of a chip on her shoulder. I liked their building working friendship, and that it is a friendship--one of those rare male/female fictional detective partnerships where the dynamic isn't romantic. And I like that even though both are good at their jobs that George shows both bring biases and baggage to their work. That investigating a crime isn't all about cerebral deductions but can be derailed by prejudices--and both in that respect balance the other. Who these people are matters; it's not just about them being dropped into a case and playing God. So, this is definitely an enjoyable and intelligently written mystery and I'll definitely be reacquainting myself with the series.
    • 4/5
      Rating: 3.875* of fiveThe Book Report: Inspectory Thomas Lynley, aka the eighth Earl of Asherton, is a hard-working man, but even he likes a few days' rest after chasing from pillar to post in solving brutal crimes. His rest is denied him by a call from his boss, at home, on a Sunday: A murder has occurred, in Scotland, and *only* Lynley can be trusted to investigate because it involves a famous Peer of the Realm.Uh-oh.Yeah, uh-oh and in spades, as Lynley tromps ill-temperedly up to Scotland where Scotland Yard has no legal standing and no authority and no utility, except in the titled person of Lynley himself. He's quite clearly if subtly warned: Lord Stinhurst, eminence of the London theatrical world, isn't to be troubled about small things like guilt or innocence or such-like plebeian goings-on. He's to be softly and swiftly shuffled out of the line of fire. So what does Lynley do? He brings Sergeant Barbara Havers, well-known to have a classist chip on her shoulder, to assist him, and he allows her a *lot* of leeway to poke and snoop and generally cause discomfort to the comfortable uppercrusties. (I suspect Lynley, were he corporeal, would've worn a small, snarky smile throughout this investigation.)As the investigation proceeds, awful truths come out, lives are ruined, others are altered, and some few are lost; but no one is spared from the terrible cleansing fires of truth. Even those one might wish could be. No bond, no tie, no feeling is safe when Elizabeth George goes to work.My Review: Good stuff. Unless you don't like puzzles or suspense or characters so real you'd swear you have their cell numbers somewhere if you could just find 'em, don't hesitate to start this series!
    • 3/5
      The second Lynley/Havers mystery; this one is set in the classic isolated country house, with a cast of actors. The playwright is killed - why? An upper-crust family scandal? A true crime book that she was working on?Mu usual George reaction: not bad, not great. Quite gripping and with plenty of red herrings, but the ongoing character soap opera gets on my wick a bit.
    • 4/5
      Second in the Thomas Lynley series. We see growth in the relationship with Barbara Havers, the misfit assigned as his partner. We also get to see Lynley face the fact that he's in love with Helen Clyde. Helen happens to be with a group of actors at a remote country hotel in Scotland, gathered for a reading of a new play. The playwright is found murdered and someone decides Scotland Yard needs to be involved. Are they trying to disturb the scene and split the case to cover up something?With a blend of jealousy and the instincts that make him a good detective, Lynley goes off on what seem like tangents to Havers, who is quite positive Lord Stinhurst did it. Suspicion of the upper class comes naturally for her. Both work their separate theories and uncover two different stories that people wanted hidden. The number of characters was a bit confusing at first and I did make a list to help keep it straight, but most of it became pretty easy to keep up with as the characters were fleshed out. A good mystery and I look forward to the next one in the series.
    • 4/5
      I saw this first on TV as an adaptation. It's an interesting story that interweaves jealousy, betrayal and suspicion. Lynley has a problem in this case that it pivots around the woman he loves, Lady Helen Clyde. Havers can see that he is biased in this case and wants to save him from himself and it's all turning into a huge mess of betrayal, intrigue and a past that people are willing to kill for.There were times when it lagged a bit but I really did want to know who did it.
    • 4/5
      Sir Walter Scott's, "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive!' certainly finds its truth in "Payment in Blood". A decades old hidden murder, a murder made to appear as a suicide, hidden affairs of the heart and other events, create the basis for this page-turnder suspenseful mystery story. Interestingly, the murders were not crimes of passion, but rather crimes of expediency to avoid disclosure of wrong-doing either on the part of the victim and/or the murderer. This is an intricately constructed story that neatly answers all questions at the end.
    • 4/5
      George continues to develop Inspector Thomas Lynley, Sergeant Barbara Havers as characters with depth. In this book she tweaks their growing, but fragile friendship, but also introduces Lynley's realization of his love for longtime friend, Lady Helen Clyde. Lynleyn's jealousy over Lady Helen's relationship with a murder suspect along with the influences of the inspector's blueblood heritage both threaten to undermine his and Havers' investigation of the murder of a well-known author. George's writing, her plotting with all its twists, and the growing insight into her two main characters combine to make this a page-turner you won't be able to put down.
    • 3/5
      Lynley and Havers solve the murder of a playwright. Watching Lynley figure out the depth of his feeling for Lady Helen interested me more than the murder (murders, actually). I had trouble keeping track of the cast in this one.
    • 4/5
      Lynley and Havers return in George’s second novel of the New Scotland Yard team. The body of Joy Sinclair (!) is found in her bedroom, with an eighteen-inch dirk through the neck. Lynley finds himself torn and his judgment compromised, through both his blue-blood lineage and his jealousy over Helen’s new lover.
    • 5/5
      A suspensefull thriller,and one of her best.