MOURN NOT YOUR DEAD: A Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James Crime Novel by Crombie, Deborah | Hardcover | Modern & Contemporary Fiction (Post C 1945)

An important and powerful policeman has been murdered, bludgeoned to death in his own kitchen. Few in suburban Surrey mourn the violent passing of Division Commander Alastair Gilbert, whose arrogance and cruelty were legendary in his village and in wider police circles -- which only makes the job of Scotland Yard investigators Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma James more difficult. And as every discovery reveals another instance of misplaced trust, festering secrets, and murderous rage, they must put aside their own personal feelings for the victim -- and for each other -- in the name of justice and the law.

Amazon.com Review

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.
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