DEBORAH
CROMBIE Born 1952 |
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YEAR |
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1993 | A SHARE IN DEATH A week's holiday in a
luxurious Yorkshire time-share is just what
Scotland Yard's Superintendent Duncan Kincaid
needs. But the discovery of a body floating in
the whirlpool bath ends Kincaid's vacation
before it has begun. One of his new
acquaintances at Followdale House is dead;
another is a killer. Despite a distinct lack
of cooperation from the local constabulary,
Kincaid's keen sense of duty won't allow him
to ignore the heinous crime, impelling him to
send for his enthusiastic young assistant,
Sergeant Gemma James. But the stakes are
raised dramatically when a second murder
occurs, and Kincaid and James find themselves
in a determined hunt for a fiendish felon who
enjoys homicide a bit too much.
O-R10/18
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1994 | ALL SHALL BE WELL Superintendent Duncan
Kincaid is deeply saddened to discover that
his terminally ill neighbour, Jasmine Dent,
has died. And when the autopsy reveals a
lethal dose of morphine, everybody assumes
suicide. Everyone except Duncan Kincaid, that
is. Jasmine had asked a friend to help her
overdose, but she had abandoned that plan at
the last minute. And why were there no empty
morphine bottles in her flat? And no suicide
note? With the help of Jasmine’s own journals,
Kincaid explores his neighbour’s life, from
her childhood in India to the final months of
her illness, discovering a hauntingly
beautiful young woman, secretive and
ambitious. Somewhere in her past lies the key
to her murder. O-R10/18
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1995 |
LEAVE
THE GRAVE GREEN When a body is found
floating in the Thames river lock one damp and
dreary morning, Superintendent Duncan Kincaid
and Sergeant Gemma James are summoned from
Scotland Yard to the Chiltern Hills outside
London. The dead man is Connor Swann,
son-in-law of London’s most renowned opera
personalities. And prints on his neck suggest
that Swann was strangled. As Duncan and Gemma
explore the quiet woods above the Thames and
the flamboyant world of London opera in search
of answers, they discover a tangled web of
family secrets and hidden emotions. And when
Duncan finds himself dangerously drawn to a
suspect, he and Gemma must sort out their
complicated feelings for one another. O-R10/18
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1996 |
MOURN NOT
YOUR DEAD The murder at Holmbury St
Mary was not one that Superintendent Duncan
Kincaid of Scotland Yard would relish
investigating. A man has been beaten to death
in his own home. A man who just happened to be
Commander Alastair Gilbert of the Metropolitan
Police. Only adding to Kincaid's problems are
his tangled personal feelings for Sergeant
Gemma James. And in an investigation of this
importance neither can afford a breakdown in
their relationship. O-R10/18
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1997 | ![]() |
DREAMING OF THE BONES It is the call Scotland
Yard Superintendent Duncan Kincaid never
expected and one he certainly doesn't want.
Victoria, his ex-wife, who walked out without
an explanation more than a decade ago, asks
him to look into the suicide of local poet,
Lydia Brooke, a case that's been officially
closed for five years. The troubled young
writer's death, Victoria claims, might well
have been murder. No one is more surprised
than Kincaid himself when he agrees to
investigate, not even his partner and lover,
Sergeant Gemma James. But it's a second death
that raises the stakes and plunges Kincaid and
James into a labyrinth of dark lies and lethal
secrets that stretches all the way back
through the twentieth century, a death that
most assuredly is murder; one that has altered
Duncan Kincaid's world forever. O-R11/18
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1999 | KISSED A SAD GOODBYE In September
1939 thousands of children were evacuated from
London. Among them were twelve-year-olds Lewis
Finch and William Hammond, both billeted on
the Surrey estate of the formidable Edwina
Burne-Jones. They became allies, then friends.
Fifty years on and Scotland Yard’s
Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Sergeant
Gemma James are called out to investigate a
death on the Isle of Dogs. A beautiful young
woman has been strangled. The prime suspect is
a busker the woman was seen talking to before
she disappeared – a busker with a strange
connection to the past...O-R11/18
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2001 | ![]() |
A FINER END Jack Montfort
grew up in the shadow of Glastonbury Tor in a
town revered as the mythical burial place of
King Arthur, and, according to New Age
followers, a source of strong druid power.
Montfort has little 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, including Nick Carlisle, a
student of Glastonbury's myths; Faith Wills, a
pregnant teenage runaway; and Winnie Catesby,
the Anglican priest who is now Jack's lover.
When a member of Jack's circle is attacked and
left for dead, he appeals to his cousin,
Superintendent Duncan Kincaid, for help. For
something terrible and bloody shattered
Glastonbury Abbey's peace long ago - and now
it is about to spark a violence that will
reach forward into the present. O-R11/18
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2002 | ![]() |
AND JUSTICE THERE IS NONE Dawn
Arrowood
is deeply preoccupied as she drives across
London through the December dusk. But her
worries pale compared with the fate that
awaits her, for as she walks up the drive
to her grand Notting Hill house, she hears
a rustle in the damp stillness and before
she can scream she is brutally murdered.
Detective Inspector Gemma James is
adjusting to a new promotion and a future
now intricately entwined with Duncan
Kincaid. Assigned to the Arrowood case,
she soon discovers that there are many
people who might have wished Dawn dead.
Soon it becomes clear that the case is
linked to a similar unsolved murder being
investigated by Kincaid. Duncan and Gemma
join forces in a hunt for a killer that
will take them from the teeming stalls of
the city’s antiques markets to the social
tensions of sixties Notting Hill, only to
discover a decades-in-the-making vendetta
of history and hatred that will threaten
all that Gemma holds previous.
O-R12/18
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2003 | NOW MAY YOU WEEP When
Detective
Inspector Gemma James is persuaded by her
friend, Hazel, to take a trip to the misty
Scottish Highlands, she jumps at the
chance. But upon their arrival it becomes
clear that Hazel has been concealing a
dangerous secret. At their remote B&B
the pair encounter Donald Brodie, the
owner of a local distillery - and Hazel’s
former lover. Their relationship had ended
abruptly years before. Now Donald is
convinced he can win Hazel back. But the
lovers' reunion yields shocking - and
mortal - consequences. Gemma soon
discovers that, in this tight-knit
community, there is no shortage of murder
suspects. And beneath the hospitable
surface, there lurks a hundred years of
bitter family rivalry waiting to emerge. O-R12/18
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2004 |
IN A DARK HOUSE
DS Duncan
Kincaid is torn away from a bitter family
custody battle to an arson scene at a vacant
warehouse in Southwark. Inside, the police
discover a corpse burned beyond recognition.
Meanwhile Kincaid's lover and former partner
DI Gemma James is trying to cope with private
concerns of her own whilst concentrating on
the disappearance of a young, beautiful
hospital administrator who has vanished
without trace. Across the city, inside an old,
dark, rambling house, a nameless woman is
holding ten-year-old Harriet hostage. Fearful
of her rigidly controllinig captor and
desperately worried abour her feuding
mother and father back at home, Harriet tries
to escape. While the clock ticks, Kincaid and
Gemma must call upon every resource as they
work together on their most interesting case
yet. O-R12/18
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2007 |
WATER LIKE A STONE
When
Superintendant Duncan Kincaid takes Gemma, Kit
and Toby to visit his family in Cheshire,
Gemma is soon entranced with Nantwich town's
pretty buildings and the historic winding
canal, and young Kit is instantly smitten with
his cousin Lally. But their visit is marred
when, on Christmas Eve, Duncan's sister
discovers a mummified infant's body interred
in the wall of an old dairy barn; a tragedy
hauntingly echoed by the recent drowning of
Peter Llewellyn, a schoolmate of Lally's.
Meanwhile, on her narrowboat, former social
worker Annie Lebow is living a life of
self-imposed isolation, preparing for a lonely
Christmas, made more disturbing by an
unexpected meeting earlier in the day. As the
police make enquiries into the infant’s death,
Kincaid discovers that life in the lovely town
of his childhood is far from idyllic, and that
the dreaming reaches of the Shropshire Union
Canal hold dark and deadly secrets.
O-R01/19
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2008 |
WHERE MEMORIES LIE Detective
Inspector Gemma James and her family are back
in their Notting Hill house and enjoying a
quiet spring in London when Gemma receives a
plea for help from her friend and neighbour
Erika Rosenthal. Erika and her husband came to
London before the end of the war as refugees
from Nazi Germany. Her long-dead husband was
murdered and his death was never solved. A
piece of jewellery stolen from her years ago
has turned up at a London auction house. Erika
believes the theft may be tied to her
husband’s murder. A tragic death placed the
investigation firmly in the present and into
the hands of Gemma’s partner, Scotland Yard
Superintendent Duncan Kincaid. Determined to
exact justice, Gemma and Duncan hunt down
the killer in achilling case that will
have lasting repercussions for everyone
involved. O-R01/19
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2009 |
NECESSARY AS BLOOD Once the haunt
of Jack the Ripper, London's East End is a
vibrant mix of history and new ideas, but the
trendy galleries of Brick Lane disguise a
seedy underside where unthinkable crimes bring
terror to the innocent. Artist and young
mother Sandra Gilles disappears without trace
after leaving her three-year-old daughter,
Charlotte, with a friend at the Columbia Road
Flower Market. Her lawyer husband, Naz Malik,
is devastated - but he's also the prime
suspect. When Naz vanishes shortly afterwards,
Gemma James and her partner Superintendent
Duncan Kincaid agree to work together again to
solve the case before the murderer can get his
hands on the real prize, Charlotte. But just
as the case grows more dangerous, a personal
issue threatens to throw Gemma and Duncan off
the trail. In the end, it is up to them to
stop a vicious killer and protect the child
whose fate hangs in the balance. O-R01/19
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2011 | NO MARK
UPON HER Olympic rowing hopeful and
senior Metropolitan Police officer DCI Rebecca
Meredith goes out alone to train on the river
in Henley on a dark afternoon in late October
but doesn’t return. When a desperate search by
the police and a K9 team reveals the
possibility of foul play, Scotland Yard wants
one of their own on the case. Detective
Superintendent Duncan Kincaid, returning from
celebrating his marriage to long-time partner
Detective Inspector Gemma James, is called to
Henley to investigate. He soon finds that the
world of elite rowing can be brutal, and that
Rebecca Meredith’s ex-husband was not the only
person with good reason for wanting her dead.
Then, when a search-and- rescue team member is
threatened, Kincaid realizes the case may be
even more complex and more dangerous than he
believed. But it is only when he enlists
Gemma’s aid that they find that the answers
lie closer to home than they could have
imagined, and are infinitely more deadly. It
seems that more than one innocent life depends
on their ability to track down the killer. O-R02/19
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2013 |
THE SOUND OF
BROKEN GLASS In the past . . . On a hot
August afternoon in Crystal Palace area of
London, Andy, a thirteen-year-old boy meets
his next door neighbour Nadine, a recently
widowed young teacher hoping to make a new
start in the South London community. Drawn
together by loneliness, the unlikely pair form
a deep connection that ends in a shattering
act of betrayal. In the present . . . On a
cold January morning in London, Detective
Inspector Gemma James is back on the job now
that her husband, Detective Superintendent
Duncan Kincaid, is at home to care for their
three-year-old foster daughter. Assigned to
lead a Murder Investigation Team in South
London, she's assisted by Detective Sergeant
Melody Talbot. Their case, a crime scene at a
seedy hotel in Crystal Palace. The victim,
Vincent Arnott, a well-respected barrister,
found naked, trussed, and apparently
strangled. Gemma's team must find his
companion - a search that forces them to
contemplate the weaknesses and passions that
lead to murder. Ultimately they will begin to
question everything they think they know about
their world and those they trust the most. O-R02/19
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2014 |
TO DWELL IN
DARKNESS Recently transferred to
the London borough of Camden from Scotland
Yard headquarters, Superintendent Duncan
Kincaid and his new murder investigation team
are called to a deadly bombing at historic St.
Pancras Station. By fortunate coincidence,
Melody Talbot, Gemma's trusted colleague,
witnesses the explosion. The victim was taking
part in an organized protest, yet the other
group members swear the young man only meant
to set off a smoke bomb. As Kincaid begins to
gather the facts, he finds every piece of the
puzzle yields an unexpected pattern, including
the disappearance of a mysterious bystander.
The bombing isn't the only mystery troubling
Kincaid. He's still questioning the reasons
behind his transfer, and when his former boss
continues to avoiding him, those suspicions
deepen. With the help of his former sergeant,
Doug Cullen, Melody Talbot, and Gemma, Kincaid
begins to untangle the truth. But what he
discovers will leave him questioning his
belief in the job that has shaped his life and
his values, and remind him just how vulnerable
his precious family is. O-R02/19
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2017 |
THE GARDEN
OF LAMENTATIONS On a beautiful morning in
mid-May, the body of a young woman is found in
one of Notting Hill's private gardens. To
passers-by, the pretty girl in the white dress
looks as if she's sleeping. But Reagan Keating
has been murdered, and the lead detective, DI
Kerry Boatman, turns to Gemma James for help.
She and Gemma worked together on a previous
investigation, and Gemma has a personal
connection to the case: Reagan was the nanny
of a child who attends the same dance studio
as Toby, Gemma and Kincaid's son. Gemma soon
discovers that Reagan's death is the second
tragedy in this exclusive London park; a few
months before, a young boy died in a tragic
accident. But when still another of the garden
residents meets a violent end, it becomes
clear that there are more sinister forces at
play. Boatman and Gemma must stop the killer
before another innocent life is taken. While
his wife is consumed with her new case,
Kincaid finds himself plagued by disturbing
questions about several previous--and
seemingly unrelated--cases involving members
of the force. If his suspicions are correct
and the crimes are linked, are his family and
friends in mortal danger as well? Kincaid's
hunch turns to certainty when a Metropolitan
Police officer close to him is brutally
attacked. There's a traitor in the ranks, and
now Kincaid wonders if he can trust anyone.As
Gemma begins to see a solution to her case,
she realizes she holds a child's fate in her
hands. Can she do the right thing? And can
Kincaid rely on his friends, both inside and
outside the Scotland Yard force, to stand
beside him as he faces the deadliest challenge
of his career? O-R03/19
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2019 |
A BITTER FEAST Scotland Yard
Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and
his wife, Detective Inspector Gemma James,
have been invited for a relaxing weekend in
the Cotswolds, one of Britain's most
enchanting regions, famous for its rolling
hills, golden cottages, and picturesque
villages. Duncan, Gemma, and their children
are guests at Beck House, the family estate of
Melody Talbot, Gemma's detective sergeant. The
Talbot family is wealthy, prominent, and
powerful - Melody's father is the publisher of
one of London's largest and most influential
newspapers. The centrepiece of this glorious
autmun getaway is a posh charity harvest
luncheon catered by up-and-coming chef Viv
Holland. After fifteen years in London's
cut-throat food scene, Viv has returned to the
Gloucestershire valleys of her childhood and
quickly made a name for herself with her
innovative meals based on traditional cuisine
using fresh local ingredients. Attended by the
local well-to-do as well as national press
food bloggers and restaurant critics, the
event could make Viv a star. But a tragic car
accident and a series of mysterious deaths
rock the estate and pull Duncan and Gemma into
the investigation. It soon becomes clear that
the killer has a connection with Viv's pub -
or, perhaps, with Beck House itself. Does the
truth lie in the past? Or is it closer to
home, tied up in the tangled relationships and
bitter resentments between the staff at Beck
House and Viv's new pub? Or is it more
personal, entwined with secrets hidden by Viv
and those closest to her? O-R10/19
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2023 |
A KILLING OF
INNOCENTS On a rainy November
evening, trainee doctor Sasha Johnson hurries
through the evening crowd in London's historic
Russell Square. Out of the darkness, someone
jostles her as they brush past. A moment
later, Sasha stumbles, then collapses. When
Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and
his sergeant, Doug Cullen, are called to the
scene, they discover that she's been stabbed.
Kincaid immediately calls in his detective
wife, Gemma James, who has recently been
assigned to a task force on knife crimes which
are on the rise. Along with her partner,
detective sergeant Melody Talbot, Gemma aids
the investigation. But Sasha Johnson doesn’t
fit the profile of the task force’s typical
knife crime victim. Single, successful,
career-driven, she has no history of abusive
relationships or any connection to gangs.
Sasha had her secrets, though, and some of
them lead the detectives uncomfortably close
to home. As the team unravels the victim's
tangled connections, another murder raises the
stakes. Kincaid, Gemma, and their colleagues
must put even friendships on the line to find
the killer stalking the dark streets of
Bloomsbury. O-Kindle-R02/23
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