Although P.D. James has made it to the top of American bestseller lists, she's not the only talented female writer of British mysteries who is popular here. Like James, Deborah Crombie is another exceptional stylist who uses every new book in a series as an opportunity to explore the emotional complexity of her central characters and further reveal the many dimensions of their personal and professional lives. Scotland Yard Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and his partner and lover, Sergeant Gemma James, are at a crossroads in their relationship. But far more compelling to both of them are their investigations in Glastonbury, the mythical burial place of King Arthur and Guinevere, where Kincaid's cousin Jack has discovered a thousand-year-old secret. Jack hasn't deciphered it yet--it's being transmitted to him by "automatic writing" in communiqués that seem to be coming (in church Latin, of course) from a monk who's been dead for centuries. Of course there's a murder involved--a couple of them, actually--but by the time Kincaid's involvement is officially sanctioned as an investigation rather than a favor for a relative, the reader has been drawn deeply into a much more ancient mystery.

As usual, Crombie creates secondary characters who are as interesting and carefully developed as Kincaid and James: a middle-aged vicar whose life is nearly snuffed out just as she's fallen in love for the first time; a pregnant teenager with apparently psychic abilities that are somehow linked to the ruins of Glastonbury's old abbey; a mendacious historian who understands the true value of the mysterious "letters" from Brother Edmund; and especially the Company of Watchers, the spirits who guard Britain's spiritual heart, who are said to watch over King Arthur until he rises again. There's more than a smidgen of New Age-iness about this somewhat atypical Crombie thriller, but perhaps that will help widen her appeal and bring her the attention her brilliant but largely unknown books deserve. --Jane Adams


From Publishers Weekly
This seventh mystery featuring Scotland Yard detectives and lovers Duncan Kincaid and Gemma Jones, a finely nuanced novel replete with multilayered characters and a rare narrative patience, shows Crombie at the top of her form after the relatively weak Kissed a Sad Goodbye (1999). The spirit of Edmund, a Glastonbury monk, possesses a cousin of Duncan's, architect Jack Montfort, prompting him to write in scholarly medieval Latin of a missing relic and a chant hidden in the nearby abbey. Among those who form an alliance to decipher the meaning of Jack's writings are Faith, a pregnant teenager, and Garnet, a reclusive artist. Nick, who works at the local bookstore, is besotted with Faith and suspicious of the free-spirited Garnet. When Jack's girlfriend, Winnie, is hit by a car and left for dead and Garnet murdered, Jack invites Duncan and Gemma to Glastonbury to help investigate. The author covers a lot of ground, from Arthurian legend (the abbey may be Arthur and Guinevere's final resting place) to Jack's lineage, which stretches back to Edmund the monk. Who fathered Faith's child is a protracted mystery, while the unearthly beauty of Glastonbury Tor draws believers and skeptics alike, giving solace to troubled souls and stirring others to perform dark deeds. Throughout, the author sustains the sharp sense of a magical history bleeding into the present, even if the denouement is too traditional for all the preceding trappings. Agent, Nancy Yost. (May 8)Forecast: Nominated for Edgar and Macavity awards, Crombie should sell to the same audience that has made Elizabeth George and P.D. James bestsellers.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Duncan Kincaid has settled into his life as part-time father to Kit, the twelve-year-old son he only recently discovered. But life has more changes in store: Gemma has pursued a promotion that ends their partnership on the job and places their personal relationship on a new, more tentative footing. So when Ducan's cousin and childhood friend calls from Glastonbury to ask his help on a rather unusual matter, he welcomes the opportunity to get out of London - and to spend a relaxing weekend with Gemma. But relaxation isn't on the agenda." "Jack Montfort, Duncan's cousin, grew up in the shadow of Glastonbury Tor in a town revered as the site of an ancient abbey, the mythical burial place of King Arthur and Guinevere, and according to New Age followers, a source of strong druid power. Montfort has not much more than a passing interest in the history of the area - until he comes across an extraordinary chronicle almost a thousand years old. The unsettling way this record comes into his hands brings Montfort into contact with a disparate group of townspeople: Nick Carlisle, a student of the myths surrounding Glastonbury's past; Simon Fitzstephen, a Church scholar whose knowledge of the Old Religion and its ceremonies is just as deep; Gamet Todd, a strange and intense woman with a jealous attachment to the young and very pregnant Faith Wills, and Winifred Catesby, the Anglican priest whose love for Jack has nearly healed his grief at the loss of his wife and daughter." "Something terrible and bloody shattered the Abbey's peace long ago according to Montfort's newly discovered history. And that knowledge will spark a violence that reaches into the present. When a member of Jack's circle is attacked and left for dead, he appeals to Duncan to find the truth the local police cannot see. None of them envisions the peril that lies ahead, or that there is more at stake than either Duncan or Gemma dreamed possible."--BOOK JACKET.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

This seventh mystery featuring Scotland Yard detectives and lovers Duncan Kincaid and Gemma Jones, a finely nuanced novel replete with multilayered characters and a rare narrative patience, shows Crombie at the top of her form after the relatively weak Kissed a Sad Goodbye (1999). The spirit of Edmund, a Glastonbury monk, possesses a cousin of Duncan's, architect Jack Montfort, prompting him to write in scholarly medieval Latin of a missing relic and a chant hidden in the nearby abbey. Among those who form an alliance to decipher the meaning of Jack's writings are Faith, a pregnant teenager, and Garnet, a reclusive artist. Nick, who works at the local bookstore, is besotted with Faith and suspicious of the free-spirited Garnet. When Jack's girlfriend, Winnie, is hit by a car and left for dead and Garnet murdered, Jack invites Duncan and Gemma to Glastonbury to help investigate. The author covers a lot of ground, from Arthurian legend (the abbey may be Arthur and Guinevere's final resting place) to Jack's lineage, which stretches back to Edmund the monk. Who fathered Faith's child is a protracted mystery, while the unearthly beauty of Glastonbury Tor draws believers and skeptics alike, giving solace to troubled souls and stirring others to perform dark deeds. Throughout, the author sustains the sharp sense of a magical history bleeding into the present, even if the denouement is too traditional for all the preceding trappings. Agent, Nancy Yost. (May 8) Forecast: Nominated for Edgar and Macavity awards, Crombie should sell to the same audience that has made Elizabeth George and P.D. James bestsellers. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Something uncanny is happening in the ancient town of Glastonbury. Teenaged Faith Wills, who's run away from home to have her baby, is suddenly taken in by Garnet Todd, the ex-midwife who seems to know all about her, even though they've just met. Nick Carlisle, who completed a degree in philosophy and theology only to end up clerking in a New Age bookshop, feels his life quicken with new purpose once he meets Faith. Anglican priest Winifred Catesby's brother Andrew, her best friend since childhood, is acting unaccountably remote and cruel. Winnie's friend Fiona Finn Allen has been painting images she doesn't understand in an uneasy attempt to get them off her mind. And widowed architect Jack Montfort is the agent, or the victim, of a stream of automatic writing that's evidently channeling 11th-century monk Edmund of Glastonbury. Jack's cousin, Superintendent Duncan Kincaid of the Metropolitan Police, is visiting with his lover, newly promoted Inspector Gemma James, when the pervasive weirdness erupts in violence, leaving one victim in a coma and a second dead. Supernatural forces are invoked far too often and earnestly to be the mere red herring you might expect; but what role do they play in the very human drama unfolding around Glastonbury Tor, the peak Faith feels she must climb despite her delicate condition? A perceptive study of the moments when the veil between this world and the next is thinnest-and quite a departure from Crombie's usual work (Kissed a Sad Goodbye, 1999, etc.). The powerful magic she finds in Glastonbury isn't for everyone.