Discussion:
Many of the members had read other books by George and they pointed out that 5 of the main characters in the book appear in other titles. The group agreed that in this book, as in Agatha Christie's books, "the puzzle is always perfect." George shakes up the characters and the reader as the plot unfolds, and the pace heightens at the end. This debut police procedural, though "bleak, and a domestic tragedy" made us all want to read more of her works.
Notes on Current Author
Though she was born in Warren, Ohio, George moved to California at the age of eighteen months. Her education included a bachelor's degree from UC Riverside and a master's degree in Counseling/Psychology from the same institution.
For thirteen and a half years she taught English at the high school level, and left education after she sold her first novel, "A Great Deliverance" to Bantam Books. After a year and a half she returned to teaching, but at the commlunity college level. She has also taught at six other colleges. After 24 years of marriage, George divorced her husband in 1999, but he remains her business manager.
George has written 16 novels in 13 years and her books have been translated into 21 languages, with the largest per capita sales in Germany. Her manuscripts are collected at Boston University. "A Great Deliverance" won the Anthony Award, the Agatha Award, and France's Le Grant Prix de Literature Policiere.
Because of her use of authentic details, many readers think George must have lived in England at some point, but she never has lived there. She states she has been an Anglophile since the 1960s and may have "lived in England in a former life." She also reveals that she learned her use of clues and red herrings from Agatha Christie.