Nominated for an Edgar, Deborah Crombie's 1997 Dreaming of the Bones was such a triumph in all respects that it's a hard act to follow. Kissed a Sad Goodbye, Crombie's sixth book about Scotland Yard's Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James, isn't quite as spectacular as her previous rendition. Still, the author who creates her very British world from a town in North Texas has managed to come up with an entirely respectable and highly enjoyable effort. Her story offers a fascinating setting in place of the poignant, personal drama that invigorated Dreaming of the Bones.

The body of a lovely young woman is found in London's fashionable Docklands area. She turns out to be Annabelle Hammond, the director of an old family firm of tea merchants. She was a woman of tremendous talent and sexual appetite, but also the kind of harsh and abrasive personality that provides plenty of motives for murder. The Hammond family is also historically linked to the self-made property developer Lewis Finch and his son, an activist dropout and street musician. The other suspects include a spineless boyfriend who works at the tea firm, a secretary too loyal to be true, and herrings of various shades of crimson. Kincaid and James have to solve it all, even as their own personal problems threaten to intrude. Thanks to Crombie's enviable ability to bring people and places to life with a single phrase, the story zips along like the new Docklands electric railroad.

Previous Kincaid-James books in paperback include Dreaming of the Bones, All Shall Be Well, Leave the Grave Green, and Mourn Not Your Dead. --Dick Adler


From Publishers Weekly
Scotland Yard detectives Sergeant Gemma James and Superintendent Duncan Kincaid (Dreaming of the Bones, etc.) return to solve a murder committed in the East End of London. On the Isle of Dogs in the Docklands area, a young woman is found dead. Oddly, her corpse has been carefully, even reverently, arranged. The stunningly beautiful victim, Annabelle Hammond, is the director of a family-owned tea company that is headquartered in a historic building nearby. Operating on the premise that Annabelle probably knew her killer, Duncan and Gemma poke around in the victim's past, meanwhile working through problems in their own lives. Duncan has recently learned that his ex-wife (who died in Dreaming of the Bones) left behind an 11-year-old son; now he is discovering how much time and emotion are needed to bring up a child. As previously, Crombie delineates expertly the interactions between lovers Duncan and Gemma, as their relationship continues to evolve. Most notable, though, is her masterful depiction of the history and character of the Docklands: the Isle of Dogs, and its historic cycle of destruction and renewal, provides a strong, atmospheric background to the tale, as the contemporary story is interspersed with accounts of the evacuation of local children (including Annabelle's father) during the bombings of WWII. Although not as emotionally intense as its Edgar-nominated predecessor, this complex, thoughtful novel is another satisfying entry in an exceptional series. Agent, Nancy Yost. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From School Library Journal
YA-In the sixth Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James mystery, Scotland Yard DS (detective superintendent) Kincaid is knee-deep in personal turmoil when he is notified about the murder of a young unidentified woman. He is trying to spend time with 11-year-old Kit, the grieving son of his recently deceased ex-wife while he determines how to tell the boy that he is his father. The intricacies of this case, however, draw him away from that endeavor and put him and Sergeant James in the company of a complex cast of characters. The murder victim turns out to be Annabelle Hammond, the daughter of rich and powerful William Hammond, the sister of Jo Lowell (whose marriage Annabelle broke up after having an affair with Jo's husband), and the lover of two other men. Hence, there is no shortage of suspects. The clues to the intriguing mystery present themselves as the layers of the story are revealed, much like peeling an onion. Scenes of East London's Isle of Dogs are vividly described. Readers learn about the forced evacuation of children from London during World War II as well as the privations and devastation suffered by England, and especially London, during the war. Young adult mystery fans will easily get caught up in the characters, the settings, and the case itself.Carol DeAngelo, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
The murder of a beautiful businesswoman in London's Isle of Dogs neighborhood calls both local police and Scotland Yard into play. The Yard's Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James (Dreaming of the Bones, Scribner, 1997) create a psychological profile of the victim and thoroughly investigate the thriving family tea concern. Her long-time friend and (estranged) fianc?, a local land developer, and a panhandling (but well-born) clarinetist are high on the list of suspects. Crombie provides a most satisfactory police procedural here, with full-blown characterization, a deceptively simple story line, and gripping human-interest subplots. Highly recommended. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
Scotland Yard's Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid (Mourn Not Your Dead, 1996, etc.), whose London turf includes the Past Docklands, is called back to work from a weekend with the 11-year-old Kit, his dead ex-wife's son, supposedly by her second husband, though Kincaid is sure he himself is the boy's father. A young woman has been found strangled in Mudchute Park. Soon identified as the victim is Annabelle Hammondthe clever, beautiful daughter of William Hammond, head of Hammond Fine Teas, which occupies a warehouse on the docks much coveted by builder Lewis Finch. Annabelle practically ran the business, with help from secretary Teresa Robbins, but it's in her promiscuous love life that Kincaid is looking for clues to her killer. Annabelle's affair with her sister Jo's husband, Martin Cowell, had killed that marriage; her liaison with Lewis Finch is no secret; neither is her affair with Lewis's son Gordon, an impoverished street musician. Not only that, but her death was preceded by a quarrel with Reg Mortimer, Annabelles official fianc of several years and a prime suspectat least until Kincaid begins to explore the wartime experience shared by Lewis Finch and William Hammond. The bizarre happenings of those long- ago days, when Finch and Hammond were evacuated from bombed London to the country house of Edwina Bourne-Jones, a patrician but loving benefactress, hold the key to Annabelle's murder and to the suicide that followed. The plotlines and cast are a bit overelaborate, but the story is compelling from start to finish. Another winner from a dependable and gifted pro. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"Atmospheric ... absorbing ... haunting."
-- The Washington Post Book World

"[Crombie] is writing in P.D. James territory, and she is a master."
-- Associated Press

"Crombie never stumbles as she maneuvers her way through her complicated plot as skillfully as she handles the ongoing romance between her two detectives. The result is an Anglophile's delight."
-- The Sunday Denver Post

"Deborah Crombie is an American mystery novelist who writes so vividly about England, she might have been born within the sound of Bow bells. [She] gets better with each book ... lyrical, biting, and evocative."
-- The Plain Dealer, Cleveland

Also by Deborah Crombie:
Dreaming of the Bones

And coming soon in hardcover from Bantam Books:
A Finer End



Review
"Atmospheric ... absorbing ... haunting."
-- The Washington Post Book World

"[Crombie] is writing in P.D. James territory, and she is a master."
-- Associated Press

"Crombie never stumbles as she maneuvers her way through her complicated plot as skillfully as she handles the ongoing romance between her two detectives. The result is an Anglophile's delight."
-- The Sunday Denver Post

"Deborah Crombie is an American mystery novelist who writes so vividly about England, she might have been born within the sound of Bow bells. [She] gets better with each book ... lyrical, biting, and evocative."
-- The Plain Dealer, Cleveland

Also by Deborah Crombie:
Dreaming of the Bones

And coming soon in hardcover from Bantam Books:
A Finer End



Book Description
Scotland Yard's Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James face their most haunting case yet when the past devastatingly intersects with the present....

The call from Scotland Yard couldn't have come at a worse time for Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid. He has promised the weekend to Kit, the eleven-year-old son of his ex-wife. The son he never knew he fathered -- who doesn't yet know Kincaid's true identity.

But Duncan's best intentions are shattered by an investigation that draws him in and swiftly consumes him. It seems to begin with the discovery of the body of a beautiful young woman in an East London park. But Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma James will discover that this case has long roots that reach far back into the past, and that resentments which should have been decades buried still have the power to hurt -- and maybe even the capacity to kill.



From the Inside Flap
Scotland Yard's Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James face their most haunting case yet when the past devastatingly intersects with the present....

The call from Scotland Yard couldn't have come at a worse time for Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid. He has promised the weekend to Kit, the eleven-year-old son of his ex-wife. The son he never knew he fathered -- who doesn't yet know Kincaid's true identity.

But Duncan's best intentions are shattered by an investigation that draws him in and swiftly consumes him. It seems to begin with the discovery of the body of a beautiful young woman in an East London park. But Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma James will discover that this case has long roots that reach far back into the past, and that resentments which should have been decades buried still have the power to hurt -- and maybe even the capacity to kill.



From the Back Cover
"Atmospheric ... absorbing ... haunting."
-- The Washington Post Book World

"[Crombie] is writing in P.D. James territory, and she is a master."
-- Associated Press

"Crombie never stumbles as she maneuvers her way through her complicated plot as skillfully as she handles the ongoing romance between her two detectives. The result is an Anglophile's delight."
-- The Sunday Denver Post

"Deborah Crombie is an American mystery novelist who writes so vividly about England, she might have been born within the sound of Bow bells. [She] gets better with each book ... lyrical, biting, and evocative."
-- The Plain Dealer, Cleveland

Also by Deborah Crombie:
Dreaming of the Bones

And coming soon in hardcover from Bantam Books:
A Finer End



About the Author
Deborah Crombie's five previous Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James novels have been nominated for the Agatha, Macavity, and Edgar Awards. She lives with her family in a small North Texas town, where she is at work on the next book in the series.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1

The old dockland is still clear in the minds of Londoners. Generations of children grew up in streets where the houses were dwarfed by ships, whose sides rose like cliffs over their back gardens.
-- George Nicholson, from Dockland: An Illustrated Historical Survey of Life and Work in East London

He saw each note as it fell from his clarinet. Smooth, stretched, with a smokey luster that made him think of black pearls against a woman's translucent white skin. "If I Had You," it was called, an old tune with a slow, sweet melodic line. Had he ever played this one for her?

In the beginning she'd stood in the street as he played, watching him, swaying a little with the music. He'd distrusted her power clothes and her Pre-Raphaelite face. But she'd intrigued him as well. As the months went by, he never knew when she would appear. There seemed no pattern to it, yet whenever he moved, she found him.

It had been a day like this, the first time he'd seen her, a hot summer day with the smell of rain on the threshold of perception. As evening fell, the shadows cooled the hot, still air and the crowds poured out onto the pavements like prisoners released. Restless, jostling, they were flushed with drink and summer's licence, and he'd played a jazzy little riff on "Summertime" to suit their mood.

She stood apart, at the back of the crowd, watching him, and at last she turned away without tossing him even a cursory coin. She never paid him, in all the times after that; and she never spoke. It had been he, one night when she had come alone, who'd called her back as she turned away.

Later she sat naked in his rumpled bed, watching him play, and he had seen the notes disappear into the shimmering web of her hair. When he'd accused her of slumming, she'd laughed, a long glorious peal, and told him not to be absurd.

He had believed her, then. He hadn't known that the truth of it was beyond his imagining.



"I won't go." Lewis Finch leaned back in his chair and obstinately planted his booted feet on the worn rail beneath the kitchen table.

His mother stood at the cooker with her back to him, putting cabbage and potatoes on to boil for his dad's dinner.

"You'll need someone to look after you, if Da's called up," he ventured. "And if Tommy and Edward join--" He realized his mistake even as she whirled round to face him, spoon still in her hand.

"Shame on you, Lewis Finch, for trying me so. Do you not think I have grief enough with your brothers' silly talk of uniforms and fighting? You'll do as you're told--" She broke off, her thin face creased with concern. "Oh, Lewis. I don't want you to go to the country, but the government says you must--"

"But Cath--"

"Cath is fifteen next month, and has a job in the factory. You're still a child, Lewis, and I won't rest unless you're safe." She came to him and pushed his thick fair hair from his forehead as she looked into his eyes. "Besides, it's all just talk now, and I don't for one minute believe we're really going to have a war. Now, go on with you, or you'll be late for school. And get your dirty boots off my table," she added with a telling glance at his feet.

"I am not a child," Lewis grumbled aloud when he'd banged his way out the front door, and for a moment he was tempted to give school a miss altogether. It didn't seem right to sit in a stuffy classroom on the first day of September.

He looked up Stebondale Street, thinking longingly of the newts and tadpoles waiting in the clay ditch behind the fence, but he hadn't anything to collect them in. And besides, if he was late Miss Jenkins would smack his hands with her ruler in front of the class, and his mum had threatened to send him to St. Edmund's if he got into trouble again. With a sigh, he stuck his hands in his pockets and trudged off to school.

The morning wore away, and through the open window of his class in Cubitt Town School Lewis could see the dark bulk of the warehouses lining the riverfront. Beyond the warehouses lay the great ships with their exotic cargoes--sugar from the West Indies, bananas from Cuba, Australian wool, tea from Ceylon. . . . Miss Jenkins's geography lecture faded. What did she know about the world? Lewis thought as she droned on about taxes and levies and acts. Now, the Penang, she could tell you about far-off places, she could tell you about things that really mattered. One of the few masted ships that still came up the Thames, she lay in Britannia Dry Dock for refitting, and just the smell of her made Lewis shiver. After school he'd--

The creak of the classroom door brought Lewis back with a blink. Mr. Bales, the headmaster, stood just inside the door, and the expression on his long, narrow face was so odd that Lewis felt his heart jerk. From the corridor rose a dull roar of sound, the chattering of children in other rooms.

"Miss Jenkins. Children." Mr. Bales cleared his throat. "You must all be very brave. We've just had an announcement on the wireless. War is imminent. The government has given orders to evacuate. You are all to go home and report back here with your bundles in one hour." He turned away, but with his hand on the door turned back to them and shook his finger. "You must have your name tags and gas masks, don't forget. And no more than an hour."

The door closed after him. For a moment the room held its breath, then a shout came from Ned Norris in the back row. "A holiday! We've got a holiday!"

The class took up the chanting as they surged out to meet the other children in the hall. Lewis joined in, pushing through the front doors and leaping from the steps with a Red Indian whoop, but his heart wasn't in it.

The children scattered, but as Lewis turned up Seyssel Street his feet slowed. He was suddenly aware of the sounds of the Island--the constant clangs, creaks, and whistles from the docks, and from the river the hoots of the tugs and the low thrumming of the ships' engines. How could there be a war, when nothing had changed?

He thought of the Penang again, being fitted out for her return journey to Australia. He'd stow away, start a new life in the Outback, not be parceled off to some strange family in the country like a piece of stray baggage. Almost eleven was old enough for a job, he was big for his age, and strong--surely someone would have him.

Turning into the top of Stebondale Street, he saw his father's old bicycle propped neatly against the front door of their house. His mother's lace curtains, fragile from so many washings, fluttered in the open front window.

He knew then that he couldn't run away, because he couldn't bear the thought of his mother's tears or his dad's gentle disappointment.

Lewis kicked hard at the bike and it toppled with a satisfying crash. He left it lying in a heap as he went through to the kitchen, and when he saw his parents' faces he knew that the news had come before him.



George Brent swung his arms as much as the dog's lead allowed and picked up his pace a bit. He needed the exercise as much as Sheba these days, for even in this heat he ached when he got out of bed most mornings. He pushed away the fleeting thought of coping with the cold and damp of winter. No point whinging about something that couldn't be helped, and in the meantime it was a gloriously hot, summer day. Winter was months away, and his worst worry was the possibility of sunburn on his bald head.

Sheba trotted ahead of him, muzzle low in search of scent, her small black body quivering with energy. As they passed the Indian restaurant on Manchester Road, she raised her nose in a long sniff. The spicy smells emanating from its kitchen were as familiar to George now as the odor of cabbage and sausage had been in his childhood, but he'd never quite made up his mind to try the stuff--though he conceded that the urgings of Mrs. Singh might one day tip the scale.

He lifted his hand to Mrs. Jenkins in the dry cleaner next door to the restaurant, then quickened his pace yet again. He was late this morning, on account of helping Mrs. Singh with her telly, and most likely he'd missed his mates who gathered for coffee at the ASDA supermarket. But it was only fair, wasn't it, doing a good turn for a neighbor? Especially as good a neighbor as Mrs. Singh.

Smiling at the thought of what his daughters would say if they knew what he got up to with the widow next door, he turned the corner into Glenarnock. They thought he was past it, but he still had a bit of lead in his pencil. And it was hard to expect a man to go without after so many years of having it regular. He meant no disrespect to their mum's memory, after all.

As they came into Stebondale Street, Sheba tugged against the lead, sensing the nearness of the park, but George slowed as they reached the terraced houses across from the entrance to the Rope Walk. They made him think of the program on the Blitz he'd heard on the radio the evening before. As he'd sat snug in his kitchen with his evening cup of tea, it had brought the memories flooding unexpectedly back--the sound the planes made as they came in for a bombing run, the sirens, the devastation afterwards.

Coming to a halt, he told Sheba to sit. He took the houses for granted now, passed them every day without a thought, but this one short block of half a dozen homes was all that had survived of Stebondale as he'd known it before the war. The rest had been destroyed, like so much of the Island, like the house he had grown up in.

He'd been too old to be sent to the country, so he'd seen the worst of the bombing in the autumn and winter of 1940. The corners of his mouth turned up as he remembered the relief he'd felt when he'd presented himself at the recruiting office on his seventeenth birthday. The real war, he'd been certain, would be better than just waiting for the bombs to fall.

A few months later those nights in the Anderson's back garden shelter had seemed an impossibly safe haven. But he had come back, that was the important thing, and his time in Italy had taught him to let the future fend for itself.

Sheba's yip of impatience ended his reverie. He moved on obligingly and soon she had her anticipated freedom, running full tilt off the lead. George followed after her at his own pace, along the Rope Walk between the Mudchute and Millwall Park, then huffed a bit as they climbed to the Mudchute plateau. There Sheba disappeared from view as she followed the rabbit trails though the thick grass, but he stayed to the narrow path that followed the boundaries of the park. The dog always seemed to know where he was even when she couldn't see him, and she wouldn't stray far.

When he reached the gate that led down to the ASDA supermarket, he glanced at his watch. Half past nine--his mates would most likely be gone. The sun had moved higher in the sky and he was sweating freely--the thought of a cuppa, even on his own, was tempting. But the longer he tarried, the hotter it would be going home.

Mopping his head with his handkerchief, he walked on. Here the brambles encroached on the path, catching at his trouser legs, and he stopped for a moment to unhook a particularly tenacious thorn from his trainer laces. As he knelt he heard Sheba whimper.

He frowned as he finished retying his shoelace. It seemed an odd sound for Sheba to make here, where her normal repertoire consisted of excited barks and yips--could she be hurt? Unease gripped him as he stood quickly and looked ahead. The sound had come from further down the path, he was sure of that.

"Sheba!" he called, and he heard the quaver of alarm in his voice.

This time the whimper was more clear, ahead and to the right. George hurried on, his heart pounding, and rounded a gentle curve.

The woman lay on her back in the tall grass to the right of the path. Her eyes were closed, and the spread of her long red-gold hair mingled with the white-flowering bindweed. Sheba, crouching beside her, looked up at George expectantly.

She was beautiful. For an instant he thought she was sleeping, even hesitantly said, "Miss . . ."

Then a fly lit on the still white hand resting on the breast of her jacket, and he knew.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Award-winning author Deborah Crombie has been delighting readers for years with her English procedural series featuring Scotland Yard sleuths Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James, including the 1997 Macavity Best Novel winner, Dreaming of the Bones . Now comes Kissed a Sad Goodbye , the sixth book in the series. This time, Duncan and Gemma are struggling to sort out some weighty personal issues as they work together to solve a murder with roots that go back more than 50 years.

Annabelle Hammond, the second daughter of tea magnate William Hammond, seems to have life by the tail. She is director and part-owner of her father's highly successful tea company, a job she not only enjoys but has an obvious flair for. She is a stunningly beautiful woman who turns heads wherever she goes. And she is engaged to Reg Mortimer, who is both her childhood sweetheart and an assistant at Hammond's Teas. But Annabelle's life is cut tragically short; she is found in an East London park, dead from a massive head wound. The corpse has been left carefully and respectfully laid out, hinting that Annabelle may well have known her killer.

Duncan and Gemma are called in to help local DI Janice Coppin investigate the murder, and it doesn't take long for them to discover that Annabelle's life wasn't at all what it seemed. The deeper they dig, the longer the list of both suspects and motives grows. First there is Annabelle's older sister Jo, whose marriage fell apart several years ago when Annabelle had an affair with Jo's husband, Martin Lowell. Jo seems to have reconciled with her sister, butMartinlays all the blame for his divorce firmly at Annabelle's feet. His bitterness has grown to the point where he tells his eleven-year-old son what happened, thus convincing the boy that the woman who was once his favorite aunt is really nothing more than a whore.

There is also Lewis Finch, a wealthy older man who has bought up much of the dock area surrounding Hammond Teas. He wants to buy the Hammond warehouse as well, but so far he has been unsuccessful. When it's discovered that Finch had an erratic but drawn-out affair with Annabelle in the recent past, Duncan and Gemma suspect some highhanded manipulations may have been going on. What's more, Finch's son, Gordon, a street musician whose bohemian lifestyle and support of the working class is a direct rejection of everything his father stands for, also had an affair with Annabelle, though he claims he recently broke it off.

Finally, there is Reg Mortimer, Annabelle's fiancé. When Duncan and Gemma discover that Reg learned about at least some of Annabelle's many indiscretions just before she was murdered, he becomes their most likely suspect. Yet his shock at her death seems genuine, and he appears to have a solid alibi.

Complicating the professional part of Duncan and Gemma's lives are a few personal crises, including the still-tentative quality of their relationship with one another. Duncan is trying to get to know Kit, the eleven-year-old son he never knew he had until his ex-wife's recent murder. But balancing the demands of fatherhood with those of his job proves to be a frustrating and monumental task. For Gemma, the challenge comes in the form of an unexpected love interest. As she tries to sort out the tangle of her emotions, she risks jeopardizing both her career and her relationship with Duncan.

As the two dig deeper into Annabelle's life and murder, they realize that the key lies some fifty years in the past, when both William Hammond and Lewis Finch were evacuated from a bombed-out London during World War II. Something happened during those years they spent together, something that spawned an intricate web of lies and deceit which has grown for more than half a century.

Kissed a Sad Goodbye is a richly textured addition to Crombie's series which also offers the gift of two stories in one. Interwoven with the modern-day story of Annabelle's murder is a moving and affecting tale of two boys who were brought together by the circumstances of war, then thrust apart by the burden of a terrible shared secret.

— Beth Amos

Beth Amos is the author of several mainstream suspense thrillers, including Second Sight, Eyes of Night and Cold White Fury . She lives in Richmond, Virginia, and is at work on her next novel.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The call from Scotland Yard couldn't have come at a worse time for Duncan Kincaid. He has promised the weekend to Kit, the eleven-year-old son of his ex-wife. The son he never knew he fathered - who doesn't yet know Kincaid's true identity. But Duncan's best intentions are shattered by a case that draws him in and consumes his interest. A young woman's body has been found in the tall grass of East London's Mudchute Park, her jacket and short skirt carefully arranged to preserve her modesty. It seems too odd a detail for a simple case of robbery or assault gone awry. And indeed the case becomes more complex when the dead woman is identified as Annabelle Hammond, bold and brilliant head of a family-owned tea company. For the victim was a mystery even to those who knew her best. As the detectives try to penetrate Annabelle's tangled affairs to glean the motive of her killer, their list of suspects grows to include her suave, upper-class fiance; the handsome street musician who may have been the last person to see her alive; her sister's vengeful ex-husband; even her own father. But what they don't know is that this case has long roots that reach far back into the past, and that resentments that should have been long buried still have the power to hurt, and maybe even the capacity to kill.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Scotland Yard detectives Sergeant Gemma James and Superintendent Duncan Kincaid (Dreaming of the Bones, etc.) return to solve a murder committed in the East End of London. On the Isle of Dogs in the Docklands area, a young woman is found dead. Oddly, her corpse has been carefully, even reverently, arranged. The stunningly beautiful victim, Annabelle Hammond, is the director of a family-owned tea company that is headquartered in a historic building nearby. Operating on the premise that Annabelle probably knew her killer, Duncan and Gemma poke around in the victim's past, meanwhile working through problems in their own lives. Duncan has recently learned that his ex-wife (who died in Dreaming of the Bones) left behind an 11-year-old son; now he is discovering how much time and emotion are needed to bring up a child. As previously, Crombie delineates expertly the interactions between lovers Duncan and Gemma, as their relationship continues to evolve. Most notable, though, is her masterful depiction of the history and character of the Docklands: the Isle of Dogs, and its historic cycle of destruction and renewal, provides a strong, atmospheric background to the tale, as the contemporary story is interspersed with accounts of the evacuation of local children (including Annabelle's father) during the bombings of WWII. Although not as emotionally intense as its Edgar-nominated predecessor, this complex, thoughtful novel is another satisfying entry in an exceptional series. Agent, Nancy Yost.

Library Journal

The murder of a beautiful businesswoman in London's Isle of Dogs neighborhood calls both local police and Scotland Yard into play. The Yard's Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James (Dreaming of the Bones, Scribner, 1997) create a psychological profile of the victim and thoroughly investigate the thriving family tea concern. Her long-time friend and (estranged) fianc , a local land developer, and a panhandling (but well-born) clarinetist are high on the list of suspects. Crombie provides a most satisfactory police procedural here, with full-blown characterization, a deceptively simple story line, and gripping human-interest subplots. Highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/99.]

School Library Journal

YA-In the sixth Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James mystery, Scotland Yard DS (detective superintendent) Kincaid is knee-deep in personal turmoil when he is notified about the murder of a young unidentified woman. He is trying to spend time with 11-year-old Kit, the grieving son of his recently deceased ex-wife while he determines how to tell the boy that he is his father. The intricacies of this case, however, draw him away from that endeavor and put him and Sergeant James in the company of a complex cast of characters. The murder victim turns out to be Annabelle Hammond, the daughter of rich and powerful William Hammond, the sister of Jo Lowell (whose marriage Annabelle broke up after having an affair with Jo's husband), and the lover of two other men. Hence, there is no shortage of suspects. The clues to the intriguing mystery present themselves as the layers of the story are revealed, much like peeling an onion. Scenes of East London's Isle of Dogs are vividly described. Readers learn about the forced evacuation of children from London during World War II as well as the privations and devastation suffered by England, and especially London, during the war. Young adult mystery fans will easily get caught up in the characters, the settings, and the case itself.-Carol DeAngelo, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

NY Times Book Review

The insular world of London's Docklands is less a picturesque backdrop than a living presence...

Island Magazine