What Came Before He Shot Her George, Elizabeth

Thomas Lynley fans know him as the doomed boy who pulls the trigger — but Elizabeth George takes us back to see how a 12-year-old becomes capable of murder. Joel Campbell is trying to hold his fractured family together in a North Kensington housing estate where violence is currency and hope is scarce. His aunt's good intentions aren't enough. His brother is slipping toward gang life. And the social worker who could help is running out of time. George strips away the whodunit to ask something harder: why? This is Dickensian social realism with the precision of a thriller, brutal and compassionate in equal measure. Not easy reading, but essential if you've ever wondered how tragedies are made, not born. For readers who want their crime fiction to cut deep.