A Share in Death by Deborah Crombie

I read her February 2012 released book, "No Mark Upon Her" first because I didn't realize there were so many before it. Then I started over with her first book "A Share In Death". I found this story less interesting than "No Mark Upon Her" because it felt as if the author was just getting a feel for her characters, their personalities and her introduction to them was a bit clumsy. That said, I have started her second book in the series, "All Shall Be Well" and already I like Duncan Kincaid more and Gemma is seeming like a person I want to know better.
In the end, I think her books are best read in the correct order no matter how tempting it is to read her most recent books. Without slogging through the first few you will fail to get to know her characters properly and something will be lost that makes the stories better, so here is the list of her first 13:
1.-A Share in Death
2-All Shall be Well
3-Leave the Grave Green
4-Mourn Not Your Dead
5-Dreaming of the Bones
6-Kissed a Sad Goodbye
7-A Finer End
8-And Justice There is None
9-Now May You Weep
10-In a Dark House
11-Water Like a Stone
12-Where Memories Lie
13-Necessary as Blood

After reading and enjoying the 15th and 16th books in this series, I decided to go back and start from the beginning. This first whodunit is more traditional (think Agatha Christie) than her latest book. I'm looking forward to watching Crombie's development as a mystery writer as I read the series chronologically. Her characters are well-drawn, her plot fast paced and complicated enough that figuring out the murderer took me most of the book, and she doesn't use sentence fragments to gain the reader's attention instead of employing creative syntax and diction ( a very annoying affectation I see in too many contemporary novels, particularly "literary" ones).

However, I take umbrage with the ebook translation of this text. For a book first published in 1993, $11 seems a bit steep, especially since the scans turned far too much regular text into italics, which I found distracting. In addition, there were at least 5 scanning errors that should have been corrected. Amazon Digital Services needs to hire better editors.

Deborah Crombie was recommended as a novelist by Louise Penny, Canadian author of the Inspector Gamache series. This first Deborah Crombie book did a good job of establishing the characters for her series and of setting the place-- London's and the Scotland Yard.

The writing of this first novel showed promise and so I continued reading--right through the 16th book! By the time author Crombie wrote the second novel, she had improved so much that it was orders of magnitude better. And she certainly hit her stride by book 3.

This series begins with Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and his sergeant Gemma James who become romantically involved. The novels have multiple plot levels: 1) a crime--a murder 2) the private lives of Kincaid and James and 3) another sub-plot or two in each novel. The sub-plots vary from historical architecture to office politics to child care to sociopath behavior to rowing, brewing single malt scotch to music!

If you read the first novel and recognize that it 1) was a first novel and 2) has the big job of character establishment, and if you enjoy police procedural novels with a sense of place, I think you'll want to continue the series.

I highly recommend the entire series.

Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing Deborah Crombie for the Valley News Dispatch (Trib Total Media). She will be making a stop in Oakmont, PA, on her book tour for the latest book in her mystery series, To Dwell in Darkness. Her book signing is hosted by Mystery Lovers Bookstore and will be held at the Carnegie Library in Oakmont on October 8 at 7 p.m.

I was nervous about the interview, as she is my first famous author - but "Debs" put me at ease immediately and made me feel like I was a long-lost friend. We had a great 20-minute conversation while I was in my car, pulled over to the side of the road on my way home from work. She talked about everything from her books to traveling to her dogs and cats. I hardly had to ask her any questions! So thanks for that, Debs!

In preparation for the interview, I read the first book in her series, A Share in Death, which was published in 1993. Since then, she has published 15 more books and is working on another.

For a first novel by someone with a Biology degree and no writing background, A Share in Death is quite impressive. It is an Agatha Christie-style mystery, set in a time-share house in Yorkshire, United Kingdom. The book introduces Duncan Kincaid, Scotland Yard Superintendent, who is on holiday at the Followdale House and doesn't really want the other guests to know what he does for a living. Until an employee of the house is murdered, that is. The local officer-in-charge has an attitude with Kincaid but is inept, so Kincaid pulls some strings and gets on the case, along with the help of his assistant, Gemma James. Then one of the guests is also murdered, and the plot thickens. There is a cast of characters, each with their own little secrets and quirks. With Gemma working on the outside and Kincaid working from the house, they begin to solve the puzzle, piece by piece.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves mysteries, and I plan to read the other 15 books in the series. I am currently reading the new book, To Dwell in Darkness, but I'll go back and read them in succession after that.

Crombie has a blog, Jungle Red Writers, that she shares with six other female mystery writers - find it at www.jungleredwriters.com.