A Finer End - Hardcover

Crombie, Deborah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0553109561 ISBN 13: 9780553109566

Publisher: Bantam, 2001

Synopsis

Deborah Crombie has earned extraordinary acclaim for her British mysteries featuring Scotland Yard Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and his partner Sergeant Gemma James. Now the masterful author of Kissed a Sad Goodbye returns with a spellbinding novel of mysteries -- one contemporary, one ancient -- that will challenge Kincaid and James as no case ever has.

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 Duncan'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; Garnet 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.

About this title

Review:

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 the Back Cover:

"A finely nuanced novel replete with multilayered characters. Throughout, the author sustains the sharp sense of a magical history bleeding into the present."
— Publishers Weekly, starred review
Raves for the novels of Deborah Crombie:

Kissed a Sad Goodbye

"Atmospheric ... absorbing ... haunting."
— The Washington Post Book World

"[Crombie] is writing in P.D. James territory, and she is a master."
— Associated Press

"Crombie never stumbles as she maneuvers her way through her complicated plot as skillfully as she handles the ongoing romance between her two detectives. The result is an Anglophile's delight."
— The Sunday Denver Post

"Deborah Crombie is an American mystery novelist who writes so vividly about England, she might have been born within the sound of Bow bells. [She] gets better with each book.... Lyrical, biting, and evocative."
— The Plain Dealer, Cleveland

Dreaming of the Bones

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

Named one of the century's best mystery novels by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association

Nominated for the Edgar and the Agatha awards for the year's best novel

"Fascinating ... multilayered."
— The New York Times Book Review

"Dreaming of the Bones will make you cry and catch your breath in surprise."
— Chicago Tribune

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0553109561
• ISBN 13: 9780553109566
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336