The three things that make Deborah Crombie's books about a pair of Scotland Yard detectives so fascinating are (a) the way the relationship between Superintendent Duncan Kinkaid and Sgt. Gemma James is constantly--and believably--changing; (b) the meticulously researched and impeccably presented details of British police procedure; and (c) the fact that the superb chronicler behind these multi-layered tales of British society is a native Texan and current resident of a small town near Dallas. This fourth entry in Crombie's excellent series sends the gently raised, intellectual Kinkaid and the tougher, more abrasive James out after the killer of a much-unloved senior policeman in suburban Surrey. Other books in the series also available in paperback are All Shall Be Well, Leave the Grave Green, and A Share in Death.


From Publishers Weekly
Sergeant Gemma James and Superintendent Duncan Kincaid reappear (after All Shall Be Well) in this finely tuned procedural that moves between the tidy village of Holmbury St. Mary and the gritty streets of London. Alastair Gilbert, a high-ranking police officer, has been bludgeoned to death in his home in Holmbury, and Scotland Yard's James and Kincaid are called in to aid the local authorities who, over time, prove to be both efficient and fallible. Suspicion immediately falls upon the fragile-looking widow, Claire Gilbert, who, along with her daughter Lucy, Gilbert's stepdaughter, discovered the body. Shrewd and methodical interviews with some of the town's citizens (the pubkeeper and his son; the vicar and doctor, both women; an engaging psychic) show that Claire and Lucy are held in high regard and suggest that more pertinent information might be found in London, where Claire's first husband had been killed in a hit-and-run accident some years earlier-a case in which Alastair had been an investigating officer. Ongoing complications in the evolving relationship between James and Kincaid add depth to the proceedings. With her meticulously, affectionately drawn cast, Crombie is closely attentive to every facet of the tiny village and demonstrates that if country life is clannish and inbred, the small world of the police force is much the same. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Marilyn Stasio
Ms. Crombie keeps this series on its toes with her smooth procedural techniques and engagingly eccentric characters.


From Kirkus Reviews
The love affair Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma James that began so uncertainly in the final pages of Leave the Grave Green (1995) is abruptly curtailed by the news that Superintendent Alastair Gilbert, the divisional commander down at Notting Dale, has been found dead in his kitchen. Some missing jewelry points to the burglar who for months has been taking the oddest trinkets from the villagers of Holmbury St. Mary. But there are deeper waters, too: Kincaid and James find little love for the scheming, manipulative Gilbert anywhere in the pacific village, from the wife who had grown out of love with him and into love with her business partner to the staff officer Gilbert had leapfrogged for promotion. The setting and characters are well drawn, if slightly pro forma, in Crombie's Texas British fashion, but few readers will be as surprised as Kincaid and James at the outcome. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Midwest Book Review
When Police Commander Alastair Gilbert is brutally murdered in his suburban Surrey home, Inspector Duncan Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma James are drawn into a case that not only challenges their investigative skills but forces them to examine their ethics and their relationship with each other. On an evening in November, Gilbert is discovered bludgeoned to death in the kitchen of his home. Since there is no sign of forced entry, it appears that either Gilbert was taken by surprise or he was killed by someone he trusted. As the investigators delve into the case they learn that Gilbert was disliked in the village, especially by the owner of the local pub, whose son had apparently become the object of Gilbert's wrath. Combining subtle emotional nuances and psychological insights with a thorough knowledge4 of the intricacies of police procedure, author Deborah Crombie produces another powerful contemporary mystery in the classic tradition. Mourn Not Your Dead is a compelling page-turner of a mystery thriller!

FROM THE PUBLISHER

When a high-ranking police officer is brutally murdered, Scotland Yard Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma James are drawn into a case that not only challenges their investigative skills but forces them to examine their ethics and their relationship with each other. On an evening in mid-November, Alastair Gilbert, a Commander in the London Metropolitan Police, is found dead in the kitchen of his suburban Surrey home by his wife, Claire, and seventeen-year-old stepdaughter, Lucy. Gilbert was bludgeoned to death, and there was no sign of forced entry. Someone must have taken Gilbert by surprise - or the killer was someone he trusted. Kincaid was once Gilbert's student at the police academy, and he fears his personal antipathy toward the dead man may lessen his objectivity in the case. Even more distracting is the state of his relationship with Gemma - strained and tense ever since their intimate encounter a few days earlier. Both Duncan and Gemma must try to put their feelings for each other and their memories of Alastair Gilbert aside as they discover that Gilbert did not always play by the rules that he publicly espoused, particularly when the rules might have hindered his rise to power.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly