It’s the birthday of American novelist Elizabeth George (b. 1949), creator of the Detective Inspector Lynley mysteries set in England. Lynley is an aristocrat (“I say, that’s not cricket”) and his trusty assistant, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, is working class (“Cor blimey”) and the author Elizabeth George is heartily sick of people asking why she, an American, set her series in England. (Answer: because she wanted to, I guess.)

Susan Elizabeth George was born in Warren, Ohio, but grew up in the San Francisco Bay area and got her B.A. in English at the University of California, Riverside (1970), and her M.S. in counseling and psychology from California State University, Fullerton (1979). She taught high school English until her first Lynley novel, A Great Deliverance, came out in 1988 and was a Big Fat Success, winning both the Agatha and Anthony Awards for Best First Novel and a prestigious French award with a fancy French name (French Grand Prix de Littérature Policière).

(Fun fact: The Anthony Award is named for critic and author Anthony Boucher. In retrospect, that’s not the funnest fact. Here’s a funner one: Boucher sometimes wrote under the pseudonym H.H. Holmes, which was also the pseudonym of a 19th century serial killer. So, ew.)

George quit teaching to write full-time and has written 20 Lynley novels, the latest of which is The Punishment She Deserves (2018). The thirteenth Lynley novel, With No One as Witness (2005), garnered great criticism and controversy due to a highly painful ending. (Look it up on Goodreads.) George travels frequently to Great Britain to research her novels, and aside from a few nitpickers, many of her British readers assume she’s British herself until they hear her American accent.

Regarding the BBC’s adaptations of her novels for TV, George has said that they’ve done a good job and considers the performances of Nathaniel Parker (Lynley) and Sharon Small (Havers) excellent; however, the TV series focuses almost exclusively on the crimes, whereas she feels her novels are character-driven as well.

And regarding the class tension between Lynley and Havers, George has said, “…those class issues are present all over the world, especially in America, and when you see them filtered through the light of a different culture, there can be something that feels very allegorical about that” (see the interview here).

George has also written several collections of short stories, a popular nonfiction book on writing (Write Away, 2004), and a YA mystery/paranormal series set on an island off Seattle.

Have a ripping good Tuesday and stay scrupulously honest to the data.