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With No One as Witness Books in the 'Inspector Lyley' series have been a source of reading pleasure since I happened on one by accident, enjoyed it so much that I have searched out and bought a copy of each of the books in the series, and have read each of them several times over. For me, the characters in the series lend as much as do the plots of each of them. I liked that in some of them, Barbara was featured and in others, Simon and Deborah; we also became more acquainted with the facets of Helen. The plots were excellent and well-crafted. Therefore, I was so looking forward to WNOAW that I pre-ordered a copy of the publishers. I wish that I had waited. The day my copy arrived, March 15 as scheduled, was the day that I read a review; of course, it would be one with 'spoilers'. It is a good mystery, which certainly took a lot of time, thought and effort. However, the book as a whole is not cohesive. There are so many things going on in so many directions with so many plots, sub-plots, 'red herrings' that it was slow going to read. And, then the 'tragedy' -- it almost seemed that the author had so many words that had to be used and she came up with this as a solution. It has only a slight connection to some issues. However, I think there surely had to be another, better solution if she wanted the series to go in another direction!!! I would have rated the book as a 5, but must give it a 3, for the, to me, outrageous way of the tragedy.