Customer Reviews

Now May You Weep (Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James Novels)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Deborah Crombie's excellent Gemma James/Duncan Kincaid series continues with NOW MAY YOU WEEP. This novel transports Gemma (and us) to the Scottish Highlands with her friend Hazel Cavendish. Hazel comes from a line of a whiskey-making dynasty. Hazel's story plays a little like Romeo and Juliet. Young lovers torn apart by family feud. Hazel leaves Highlands rather than have her lover lose his place in his family dynasty. She marries and moves on with her life only to meet up with her former lover years later. She has never forgotten him and decides to see where it all might lead, so after a bit of subterfuge, she brings Gemma with her to the Highlands in the guise of doing a cookery class there.
Things get a bit tricky when her former lover is found dead and suspicion rests on Hazel.

Crombie's strengths lie not only in tightly woven suspenseful plots, but the rich characterizations she brings to all her novels. Here we have not only the mystery that is intriguing in itself, but also the ongoing story of Gemma and Duncan. They have moved in together with their respective sons, but it is not smooth sailing for the family. Gemma and Duncan are extremely likable characters and I enjoy reading about them immensely.

"Now May You Weep" is Deborah Crombie's latest mystery featuring Gemma James and Duncan Kincaid. Since Gemma left Scotland Yard, she no longer has a working relationship with her lover and housemate, Superintendent Duncan Kincaid. Gemma decides to take a few days off from her job as a detective inspector with the Metropolitan Police to enjoy a cookery weekend in the Scottish Highlands. She is traveling with Hazel Cavendish, her landlord and good friend.

Much to Gemma's surprise, she finds that Hazel had an ulterior motive when she suggested this trip to Scotland, which was her childhood home. It seems that Hazel has been keeping secrets about her past not only from her friend, but also from her husband, Tim. These secrets lead to an unanticipated series of events that end in murder.

"Now May You Weep" features a nice change of scenery. Crombie makes the most of the beautiful Scottish countryside where the story is set. She describes the heather-clad moors, the rolling hills, and granite cliffs of the Highlands in vivid detail. A number of the characters speak in a colorful Scottish dialect, which adds to the book's atmosphere. Since some of the characters are whiskey distillers, Crombie takes the time to explore the history and manufacture of Scotch whiskey, which may be interesting for those who care about how fine whiskey is made.

The problem arises with Crombie's plot, which turns out to be a bit of a potboiler. Love triangles abound, and the melodrama is piled on fairly heavily by the time Crombie comes to her climactic conclusion. She uses the same device that worked well in her previous book, namely a series of flashbacks that supposedly explain the events of the present day. Unfortunately, this time around, the flashbacks are distracting rather than illuminating. It is also too bad that Gemma and Duncan spend less time than usual together, and the story suffers for it. The mystery is a little too forced, and the characters lack the psychological depth that we have come to expect from Crombie. "Now May You Weep" is a disappointing installment is an otherwise above-average mystery series.

"Now May You Weep" takes us with detective Gemma James and her best friend, Hazel Cavendish, to the Scottish Highlands for a culinary weekend. Hazel has deep family roots in the beautiful area, famous for flavorful, aged whisky made in picturesque distilleries. Her homecoming reveals some of the details of her earlier life and a previous romance with the handsome Donald Brodie, whom Gemma is surprised to find, has never completely left Hazel's life.

Crombie uses a flashback technique, quoting the diaries of two women in the late 1880s, to weave a tale of passion, fortune, and long-kept secrets. The reader will be swept along as Gemma pieces together disparate evidence to solve a tragic murder, and as she comes to know her close friend Hazel on an even deeper level. Kudoes to Crombie for another great read!

I am a huge fan of the series and have contacted Deborah to praise her writing on previous Kincaid/James titles but this one missed the mark. Duncan and Gemma were flatine, their growth arc non-existant, Gemma was unrecognisable and Hazel's 'past life' did not ring true knowing her as we do through this series,the storyline was forced and contrived, the back story did not contribute to the mood as in the other novels. I re-read the book prior to posting and still feel the same.
Hopefully book 10 in this series tentatively titled 'One Blood Will Tell' gives us back the texture on which this series was built.

I am a fan of Deborah Crombie's Gemma James and Duncan Kincaid mysteries but this one is a disappointment. The plotting is not only rather weak but somewhat implausible. It smacks of a typical rote-romantic mystery which is quite unlike Crombie's usual novels.

Gemma travels with her friend, Hazel Cavendish, to Scotland and whiskey distilling country and she finds out on their arrival, that Hazel had set up the weekend to reunite with her first lover. Although, married to a fellow therapist and seemingly happy in previous novels, it seems that Hazel has never gotten over her first lover, Donald Brodie, the owner of a successful distillery with a long history in Scotland. When Donald is murdered, Hazel is initially suspected. Kincaid makes a brief appearance but Gemma ultimately solves the murder. The murderer seems to have a somewhat weak motive for the crime but then the entire narrative plot is also weak.

An ongoing historical narrative seems to be added to give meat to the plot but is a little fanciful and melodramatic, particularly when it is hinted that Hazel is plugging into this 100 year old story.

All in all, a disappointment from a usually excellent writer. I look forward to her next offering.

This latest in the Kincaid-James series was no disappointment, although being a lover of Scotland AND Crombie, I am perhaps biased. But Crombie just gets better (unlike so many mystery writers who have to churn out a new book every year and burn out after a while).

The plot involves a long weekend trip to the Scottish highlands by Gemma James, who is invited by her friend Hazel Cavendish. It turns out that this is not going to be the innocent weekend learning some cooking at an old farmhouse run by an old school friend of Hazel's -- Gemma learns that an old lover of (now married) Hazel will be present for the weekend. Not only that, but Hazel has been meeting the old lover, Donald Brodie, in London. Donald runs a family distillery (Scotch) down the road from the farmhouse and will be doing the cookery weekend as well. No-one thinks this weekend is a good idea except Donald, who wants Hazel to leave her husband for him.

Needless to say, someone ends up dead and Hazel is a suspect, so Gemma gets involved in trying to solve the murder (to the annoyance of the local police). Duncan ends up joining her, so they are once more working together.

Interspersed with this 2003 story are short sections of a story that took place 100 years ago in the same area, with the ancestors of Donald and Hazel and some other characters. In a place where feuds and grudges are rife, the story of family conflict from the past explains some of the tensions in the present day story.

All in all, the plotting was excellent and characterization and dialogue well-done. Add to this the Scottish highland backdrop, and this mystery made a great read. I could practically smell the heather. I can hardly wait to find out what happens to James & Kincaid next. I hope Crombie does another "Scottish" mystery soon.

Spend a rainy weekend with this book and your favorite single malt scotch, and you won't be disappointed. Crombie moves her characters to the Scottish Highlands for this atmospheric tale of illicit love and lost opportunities, served up with typical Crombie insight into the characters and their motivations, and a parallel backstory that reminds us how long memories can last. Sex, murder, betrayal, money, and possibly even a ghost mix with characters you'll wish you could see again to make a smoothly textured, completely satisfying read.

This is the ninth installment in the Gemma James/Duncan Kincaid Scotland Yard series with our heroes on the outside of a murder investigation involving Gemma's good friend and ex-landlord as a prime suspect. This book has the template of this series' earlier entries - the weaving of plots past and present, a cast of characters tied together in a murder investigation and Gemma and Duncan balancing police work with their personal relationship and children. What is blatantly absent is a gripping story line. There are love triangles aplenty, more than enough information for this reader on the distillery industry and plenty of conversations about food but the murder mystery never gains any traction. If you are new to this series, start at the beginning for this addition contains none of the subtlety, complexity and depth of those very good books.

Deborah Crombie is a puzzling writer: how can someone who is capable of writing a book as good as And Justice There is None (her previous mystery) produce a clinker like this one, or like A Finer End (the one before And Justice There is None)?

It's hard to put my finger on precisely what makes this book fall flat, but fall flat it does. Part of the problem is Crombie's attempt to weave together two stories: a late-19th-century story and an early-21st-century story, both of which take place in the same part of the Scottish highlands and involve members of the same families. In theory, this isn't a bad idea, but in practice, the stories never relate to each other in any meaningful way.

Another problem is the amount of research that went into this book. The good news is that, as usual, Crombie did her research thoroughly. The bad news is, she wasn't able to keep her research from sticking out all over the book like the proverbial sore thumb. There's so much information in this book about how Scottish whisky is made, at times it almost reads like a how-to-start-your-own-distillery handbook. And at one point, she brings the plot to a screeching halt while one of the characters gives the recipe for an appalling-sounding dish called Cullen Skink.

Then there are the cars. Crombie spends an inordinate amount of time explaining where every car is at every point in the story, and who borrowed whose car to go where. I suppose that, if you're writing a mystery, it's important to keep a chart showing where every character and every car is at every moment, so you don't inadvertently put someone in a place where he couldn't possibly be. But, unless the "Who drove whose car?" issue is essential to the plot (and it isn't, here), the reader doesn't need to see that chart -- and, far too often, I felt like that's exactly what I was looking at.

I don't know if there's a pattern developing here, but I noticed that, of Crombie's last three books, the only one I thought was successful was the one set in London (And Justice There is None), while the two that I found disappointing were set in the Scottish highlands (this one) and Glastonbury (A Finer End). Can it be that Kincaid and James simply don't travel well? Here's hoping that Crombie's next book -- which I will read, despite my reservations about this one -- will represent both a return to London, and a return to form for her.

Even if you've never read the previous eight books in the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James mystery series, Now May You Weep would be a standout. Author Deborah Crombie -- in her usual fashion -- gives us characters so real you feel they might walk right off the page, sets them in motion in a beautifully drawn setting and starts things off with a bang -- quite literally -- in her meticulously developed plot. This book goes down as smoothly as the malt whiskey that plays an important part in the story. A real treat.