Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Rain is coming and my knee is acting up.  I dug out a knee cover and took two Aleve.  We need the rain, but my joints don't!  The gloom makes it perfect to be reading Elizabeth George's new Lynley mystery.  I'm a bit sick of the British, but I do love the character of Barbara Havers.  I identify with her working class origins and her resentment of the privileges of the upper class, especially Lynley.  In this book she can see what's expected of her, and she tries, for the sake of her job, but her authenticity will not be bound even by her own self-interest.  I like that stubbornness.  She's in a man's world, judged by her looks and clothes and mannerisms.  But that man's world is corrupt and arbitrary and cruel.  She's so intelligent and good at her job that she's survived so far, and Lynley, even if he doesn't understand her, appreciates her.  I think the character is coming into her own in this series because she's the heart of it.  It's her we root for, not all the posh superiors.  Elizabeth George has a nice dollop of Dickens in her writing, and we sorely need her understanding of what ordinary people face:  including unfairness, prejudice and lack of support.  Hear, hear, Havers!