Dreaming of the Bones

Starred review from September 29, 1997
Crombie's English procedural series featuring Scotland Yard's Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James (Mourn Not Your Dead, 1996, etc.) takes a giant leap forward with this haunting mystery set among Cambridge literary types. Vic McClellan, Duncan's ex-wife and a member of the English faculty at Cambridge, is writing a biography of Lydia Brooke, a Cambridge poet whose death five years earlier was attributed to suicide. Convinced that Lydia didn't kill herself, Vic asks Duncan to look into the poet's death. Estranged from Vic since she left him 12 years ago, Duncan is at first unwilling to help. But Vic's literary evidence and a brief look at the local police records soon convince him and Gemma, who's his lover as well as his partner, that there's something fishy about Lydia's demise. Having reconciled with Vic and been charmed by her son, Kit, Duncan is devastated when she is murdered. Assisted by Gemma, he sets out on a personal crusade to find the killer. Their investigation leads to Lydia's circle of Cambridge friends in the 1960s: Nathan, now on the botany faculty; Darcy, a colleague of Vic's on the English faculty; Daphne, headmistress of a girls' school; and Adam, an Anglican priest. It's Gemma, through close reading of a long-lost poem by Lydia, who uncovers the crucial secret. As Crombie continues to explore Duncan and Gemma's complicated relationship, she adds a deeper resonance in the form of Duncan's feelings for Vic and Kit. This is the best book in an already accomplished series. Crombie excels at investing her mysteries with rich characterization and a sophisticated wash of illuminating feminism.

September 1, 1997
As in her "Leave the Grave Green" (1995), Crombie uses a tragedy from the past to precipitate one in the present. Just as poet Lydia Brooke was fascinated by her literary "namesake," Rupert, so Cambridge professor Vic McClellan has made finding out about Lydia, now dead, her mission. But in probing Lydia's life for a biography, Vic comes across some information that makes her believe that Lydia's death was murder--a discovery that leads her to contact her ex-husband, Scotland Yard Superintendent Duncan Kincaid. When Vic herself is found dead, Duncan is pulled into the mystery, taking his lover, Sergeant Gemma James, along with him. Like the three previous contemporary whodunits in the series, this one concentrates more on character than on atmosphere and puzzle, and the complicated tapestry of relationships that Kincaid and James must unravel leads not only to a murderer and a terrible secret but also to knowledge that touches Kincaid's own life and affects the future of his relationship with James. This doesn't have quite the English country house flavor of Elizabeth George's books, though George's readers might like it; so might readers who've enjoyed Jill McGowan's mysteries featuring Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd and Detective Inspector Judy Hill. ((Reviewed Sept. 1, 1997))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1997, American Library Association.)