Scotland Yard detectives Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James return for their seventeenth adventure to investigate separate murders in Deborah Crombie’s latest mystery novel, The Garden of Lamentations.
Through a friend, Detective Gemma James learns about the mysterious death of a nanny whose body was found inside a private garden. Upon working the case, Gemma struggles to find any reason someone would want the attractive young woman dead.
As Gemma continues hunting for leads, Kincaid’s world is rocked after he meets with Chief Denis Childs, his former boss who had gone missing. Before Kincaid is able to get the answers he wanted, Childs is murdered. With so many questions left hanging in the air, Kincaid vows to find out why Childs went dark in the first place, who killed him, and why.
Kincaid’s early findings lead to him believing that Scotland Yard has a traitor among them. To keep his wife safe, in case the killer is murdering to buy silence, he keeps this from her and continues looking into things by himself. Gemma misreads her husband’s attempt to protect her, believing instead that there’s a divide deepening between them which was originally caused when they started to each put their career and children before one other.
Eventually, though, Kincaid is forced to involve other officers that he trusts, including his wife, as they try to smoke out the mole. At the same time, Gemma makes a startling discovery in regards to the dead nanny case when she finds out that this isn’t the first time a body was recovered in the exclusive, hard-t0-access garden.
Newcomers to the series should strongly consider at least reading To Dwell In Darkness, the sixteenth novel in the franchise, because much of this plot follows unanswered questions from Crombie’s last novel. Without any knowledge of past events, readers may struggle to connect all the dots. At the very least, read the flashback scenes (which are brief) very carefully.
Crombie’s latest novel shows that she’s still able to inject plenty of new surprises into her long-running series. Kincaid’s investigation into police corruption at the highest levels is the focal point, but the all-new conflict between her lead characters proves that there’s still plenty of material left to work with as Kincaid and James have never been tested quite like this before.
The Garden of Lamentations is everything fans have to come to expect from Deborah Crombie–a complex, multi-layered plot that will keep you on your toes while you try to solve the case before her heroes do.
Book Details
Author: Deborah Crombie
Series: Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James #17
Pages: 432 (Hardcover)
ISBN: 0062271636
Publisher: William Morrow
Release Date: February 7, 2017 (Order Now!)