From Publishers Weekly
Written with compassion, clarity, wit and precision, this graceful mystery amply fulfills the promise of Crombie's debut novel, A Share in Death. "Morphine coats the mind like peach fuzz," thinks Jasmine Dent, a 50-year-old spinster born in India who is dying in London of lung cancer. Her death resembles suicide but leaves her friend and neighbor from the flat above, Scotland Yard Supt. Duncan Kincaid, uneasy. The postmortem he orders reveals an overdose of morphine, prompting him and his sergeant, hot-tempered, copper-haired Gemma James, on a thorough investigation. Suspects include 30-ish, disheveled Meg Bellamy, a timid friend with whom Jasmine had considered suicide, and the downstairs neighbor known as the Major, a veteran of the Muslim-Hindu clashes in Calcutta in 1946 and an avid gardener with whom Jasmine had often sat "like two old dogs in the sun." Others include Meg's stunningly handsome, bullying beau Roger, who urged that she help Jasmine end her life; Felicity Howarth, Jasmine's faithful home-care nurse who slaves to keep her brain-damaged son in an institution; and Jasmine's weak-willed brother Theo, owner of a village junk shop who has failed at every venture he's tried. Helped by Jasmine's journal and a visit to a mental hospital, the clues finally click into place to reveal the culprit. Meg makes a decision that promises hope for two people, while Gemma and Duncan, both unlucky in love, move closer to each other. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
This American author follows the successful debut of A Share in Death ( LJ 1/93) with another Scotland Yard procedural featuring Supt. Duncan Kincaid and Sgt. Gemma James. When the autopsy of Duncan's terminally ill neighbor indicates a drug overdose, Kincaid must determine whether the death was murder or suicide.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Crombie's second installment in the Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James series respects all the conventions of the police procedural subgenre but still manages to seem fresh and lively. Scotland Yard Superintendent Kincaid's terminally ill neighbor Jasmine Dent has died, possibly a suicide, but Kincaid senses something amiss. With Sergeant James' expert help, Duncan goes on a search for anyone with a possible motive for murder. They consistently draw blanks until Jasmine's journals provide some insight into her past and ultimately unlock the key to the mystery. All in all, this is an extremely satisfying procedural with good plotting and excellent characterizations. And while Duncan and Gemma's relationship may already be something other than strictly professional, Crombie is too savvy to let it progress all that much more, undoubtedly holding back for what we hope will be many more sequels. Stuart Miller


From Kirkus Reviews
When Margaret Bellamy tells Superintendent Duncan Kincaid that she'd agreed to help Kincaid's downstairs neighbor Jasmine Dent end her cancer-stricken life but then couldn't go through with it, Kincaid wonders if somebody else assisted Jasmine's suicide--or gave her a lethal dose of morphine for less helpful reasons altogether. The potential motives of the suspects--Jasmine's ineffectual brother Theo, who's failed at one small business after another; her basement neighbor Major Keith, a devoted gardener who served in India at the same time Jasmine was born; home-help nurse Felicity Howarth, who wants to refuse her thousand-pound legacy; and Meg's grasping boyfriend Roger Leveson-Gower, who's counting on her coming into money--seem commonplace enough; but Kincaid and his sergeant Gemma James (A Share in Death, 1993), their path lit by entries from Jasmine's journal, uncover an entirely unexpected new motive. In fact, the ending may be too unexpected for Crombie's quietly probing manner; it's the firm portraits of even minor characters that make this linger in the memory. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description

Perhaps it is a blessing when Jasmine Dent dies in her sleep. At long last an end has come to the suffering of a body horribly ravaged by disease. It may well have been suicide; she had certainly expressed her willingness to speed the inevitable. But small inconsistencies lead her neighbor, Superintendent Duncan Kincaid of Scotland Yard, to a startling conclusion: Jasmine Dent was murdered. But if not for mercy, why would someone destroy a life already so fragile and doomed? As Kincaid and his capable and appealing assistant Sergeant Gemma James sift through the dead woman's strange history, a troubling puzzle begins to take shape -- a bizarre amalgam of good and evil, of charity and crime . . . and of the blinding passions that can drive the human animal to perform cruel and inhuman acts.


About the Author
Deborah Crombie was born and educated in Texas and has lived in both England and Scotland. Her Kincaid and James novels have received Edgar, Agatha, and Macavity Award nominations, and her fifth novel, Dreaming of the Bones, was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and was selected as one of the 100 Best Crime Novels of the Century by the Independent Mystery Booksellers of America. Her novels have been published in Japan, Germany, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, France, the Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom. Ms. Crombie travels to England several times a year and has been a featured speaker at St. Hilda's College, Oxford. She lives in a small North Texas town, sharing a turn-of-the-century house with her husband, three cats, and a German shepherd dog.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Perhaps it is a blessing when Jasmine Dent dies in her sleep. At long last an end has come to the suffering of a body horribly ravaged by disease. It may well have been suicide; she had certainly expressed her willingness to speed the inevitable. But small inconsistencies lead her neighbor, Superintendent Duncan Kincaid of Scotland Yard, to a startling conclusion: Jasmine Dent was murdered. But if not for mercy, why would someone destroy a life already so fragile and doomed? As Kincaid and his capable and appealing assistant Sergeant Gemma James sift through the dead woman's strange history, a troubling puzzle begins to take shape — a bizarre amalgam of good and evil, of charity and crime . . . and of the blinding passions that can drive the human animal to perform cruel and inhuman acts.

About the Author