Customer Reviews

A Finer End

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is the seventh Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James outing in a series that is one of the best being written today.

When Kincaid, a Scotland Yard Detective Superintendant, is called by his cousin, Jack Montifort, to help discover who ran down Anglican priest Winifred Catesby and nearly killed her. Kincaid reluctantly agrees to talk to a few people and asks his former partner, the newly promoted Inspector James, to accompany him to Glastonbury. Once there, Montifort tells them that he has been in contact with an 800-year-old priest who wants him to do something, but he's not yet sure what. When another woman is killed, Kincaid moves into high gear.

Crombie has once again written a beautifully rendered mystery. The plot is intricate, but not so intricate as to be incomprehensible. She is able to move the story along at a sprightly pace despite several characters, including the long-dead priest. This is a fascinating read both from a historical perspective, Crombie is adept at giving you history without making it the focal point, and from a mystery perspective, why would anyone want to run down an Anglican priest and kill a ceramicist?

This book has it all - character development (once again Kincaid and James' relationship is changing), plot, mystery, procedural, and good old-fashioned great writing. Do not pass this series and this entry into the series by.

I have been reading Crombie's series for some time now, and "A Finer End" is one of her best efforts. In this new mystery, Scotland Yard Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid is summoned by his cousin, Jack Montfort, to provide help with a sensitive matter. Winnie Catesby, an Anglican priest and Jack's lover, has been hit by a car and left for dead. Was this an accident or a deliberate attempt at murder? Jack wants Duncan to look into the case and give his professional opinion. Gemma James, Duncan's lover and former partner, has been promoted to Inspector, a move that has caused a rift between Gemma and Duncan. Gemma comes with Duncan to Glastonbury, where Jack lives, to get away from the pressures of her new job for a few days. Glastonbury is a town that features the ruins of an ancient abbey. It is also a tourist attraction for New Agers who come to get in touch with the powerful spiritual forces that are reputed to be centered there. Crombie's book features a fascinating cast of characters, including Simon Fitzstephen, a Church scholar with dark secrets and Garnet Todd, an eccentric woman who is terrified of the forces of darkness that she believes are present in Glastonbury. Soon after Winnie's "accident," another resident of the town is murdered. Kincaid and James get embroiled in the passions of a place where feelings of fear and anger have been festering for many years. "A Finer End" is a psychological mystery that is also rich in history, spirituality and romance. The mystery is intriguing and satisfying, with enough red herrings to keep the reader guessing until the end. I recommend "A Finer End" for fans of atmospheric British police procedurals.

While not strictly a historical mystery, this seventh outing for Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James has historical elements.

When Kincaid, a Scotland Yard Detective Superintendant, is called by his cousin, Jack Montifort, to help discover who ran down Anglican priest Winifred Catesby and nearly killed her. Kincaid reluctantly agrees to talk to a few people and asks his former partner, the newly promoted Inspector James, to accompany him to Glastonbury. Once there, Montifort tells them that he has been in contact with an 800-year-old priest who wants him to do something, but he's not yet sure what. When another woman is killed, Kincaid moves into high gear.

Crombie has once again written a beautifully rendered mystery. The plot is intricate, but not so intricate as to be incomprehensible. She is able to move the story along at a sprightly pace despite several characters, including the long-dead priest. This is a fascinating read both from a historical perspective, Crombie is adept at giving you history without making it the focal point, and from a mystery perspective, why would anyone want to run down an Anglican priest and kill a ceramicist?

This book has it all - character development (once again Kincaid and James' relationship is changing), plot, mystery, procedural, and good old-fashioned great writing. Do not pass this series and this entry into the series

This Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James mystery was not up to the usual standard. Apparently the author Deborah Crombie found a subject, Glastonbury, which she found fascinating and around which she attempted to construct her story. However, automatic writing from a centuries-dead monk and visions of musical chants are a bit far-fetched. I will grant that the legends and myths of Glastonbury are an interesting subject, but Ms. Crombie's attempt to incorporate them into a mystery to be solved by Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James just didn't work. I hope that in her future books Ms. Crombie returns to the high quality of writing and story-telling that she has exhibited in her previous books.

Although fans of the series will undoubtedly enjoy Crombie's lastest offering, I found the underlying mystery in this one somewhat ridiculous and certainly contrived. The characters are really sketchily drawn and their actions are, shall we say, out of character. And things just don't make sense -- the runaway Faith, has run away from the next village over and is working in a restaurant. Why didn't her family, who was allegedly searching for her, find her? Where did they look? When stuck, Crombie moves the action forward by the use of "automatic" writing or finally by "automatic" painting. After finishing the book, I'm still a bit confused as to what actually happened, and why. Guess my crystal is a bit clouded.

Duncan and Gemma's love story continues down a rather surprising path and it will be interesting to see how Ms. Crombie handles the coming changes in their lives. However, I am troubled by the lack of communication between these two, particularly Gemma to Duncan. Crombie paints Kinkaid as a loving, supportive, affectionate man, and I have a bit of trouble understanding why Gemma can't talk to him about even the most mundane matters. If memory serves me correctly, Gemma struggled throughout KISSED A SAD GOODBYE, to gain the courage to tell Duncan she was taking piano lessons. Things get a bit rougher in A FINER END.

Pros. This is a pleasant read. The first half of this book consists of vignettes developing Crombie's expendable (non-series) characters. They are interspersed with glimpses of the changing state of the romance between our two police detectives, Kincaid and James. The small-town characters are really well-developed, the strongest part of this story. I was really drawn in to their roundly depicted and interesting lives, and not one of them is an obviously crooked or villainous person. Each character has an engaging personality and profession. It turns out that most of them also are concealing regrettable, if not criminal, episodes somewhere in their pasts that provide motivation, and suspicious behavior, in the present. And you get a good feel for their ancient Arthurian pilgrimmage town of Glastonbury, now a New Age mecca, whose glowering Tor and ruined Abbey play their own important roles in the plot. Half way through the story some crimes finally occur and everyone is sucked into the stew.

Cons. Because the characters are so well drawn the periodic attempts to introduce an ominous or creepy Glastonbury atmosphere seem artificial. I've never run into a mystery like this where you have to accept visions, dreams, premonitions, sceances, and spirits to make the plot development at all credible. The passing of time between vignettes is not well-marked, and transitions can be jumpy. There isn't as much consistent "Britishness" as you'd expect from a true English writer. Kincaid and James are on holiday here, in another copper's patch. There's a lot of police leaping to conclusions and speculating-obviously to keep us guessing-and rather little hard police procedural. I enjoyed this book much more as a story that resolves the varied personal difficulties of the local characters (ancient as well as modern) rather than specifically as a mystery (which is thin).

A FINER END by Deborah Crombie is a "good read" but not nearly as well written as her earlier novel KISSED A SAD GOODBYE. Crombie seems to have fallen into the trap of the "successful" writer who feels compelled to "get out the next novel" to her waiting fans. As a fan who has been waiting, I can appreciate her effort, but this is a sad development because Crombie can write well and has not done so in this novel.

As a result of her expedited effort, the plot of A FINER END is thin and contrived, the characters (even the two main characters Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James) are poorly developed, and the text filled with sterotypes and hackneyed expressions. I found A FINER END to be an amalgam of a Susan Allen Toth "thumbprint visit" of Glastonbury, an imitation Cadfael, a warmed over Miss Marple murder and the vicar, and dinner at the heartbreak cafe --in other words, formulaic. I almost expected to find a chapter beginning "It was a dark and stormy night..."

Crombie is not English (she lives in a small town in Texas), but she was able to keep her American identity "under wraps" in previous books--perhaps because she concentrated her stories in London which is relatively heterogeneous, somewhat middle-class, relatively democratic, and acculturated by American televison and movies. Her superficial knowledge is exposed in this novel.

However, I suppose the thing that irritated me most about A FINER END is Crombie's ethnocentric ignorance of religions -- which wouldn't matter except her book hinges on a New Age-Pagan-Goddess religious connection--all different religious/spiritual practices. When the narrator utters the phrase "not even the Goddess could predict" you know the book is in trouble.

There are those who believe the Goddess knows all things, sees all things, etc. just as there are those who believe Allah or God or Jehovah is omniscient, omnipotant etc. And, Pagans are nature worshippers, not Goddess worshippers. And when did the "Old Ones" come to represent ALL pre-Christian beliefs? And, do you not think Christianity has it's dark side -- a crucified lord, the inquisition, crusades, the devil!! Crombie has created a mish-mash with which she associates the word "cult" and comes very close to calling human-sacrificers but does not quite because someone had the good sense to keep her from going over the cliff or Tor in this case--or did they?

I agree with the other disappointed reviewer. There are a lot of silly loose ends. A little thing that nagged me was why would one fire ceramic tiles without electricity? Yes, I know the artist is making tiles in the old way, using designs and paints from the past, and I know there are ways of heating ovens with firewood/charcoal (we have examples of the process in various historical locations in Virginia) but I do not know a single professional-artist tile-maker--working alone--who makes tiles for a living and does not use electricity.

If you must read this book, wait for the paperback or check it out of the library.

While this is a bit of a departure for Crombie (it is reminiscent of many Barbara Michaels novels due to the "suspension of disbelief" quality), it was still an engaging page-turner. The Glastonbury/monk history was fascinating, and the way the characters are caught up in their "New-Age" task is magical and captivating. Departure or not, the best part of her books is always the characters, and in this one you are just as engrossed in Kincaid and Gemma as you are in Jack and Winnie and the rest of the group. So, suspend your disbelief, find a cozy spot, and enjoy!

I feel duped. I don't mind a little magic in the books I read, but I plowed through this book to the very end hoping that the so-called communications from 11th century monks and "Old Ones" would be explained rationally; I was fooled. Crombie does a good job resolving the crime elements, and I appreciated the medieval history lesson, but the characters' motivation is absurd. I just can't imagine an actual Scotland Yard detective accepting automatic writing, visions, and aural hallucinations as factual.

A FINER END is apparently the seventh book in Crombie's Duncan Kincaid/Gemma Jones series, but my first. If I had it to do over again, I would have started with number one. It's not that you're lost if you jump in at the seventh, but you miss the character development that has gone before. It tends to be a significant part of the story. That aside, though, I liked this book. It was nicely plotted and not easy to see through, although I had Andrew's situation figured out from early on. The characters were interesting and well-drawn, and the historical aspect and setting of the story added to the somewhat eerie atmosphere and my interest level.

My only problem with A FINER END was the almost casual way in which direct communication from am 11th century priest plays into the story. Whenever seemingly supernatural elements are used by most mystery writers, they end up with a logical explanation, as is the case with the spectral hound in THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. A FINER END askes the reader to accept "automatic writing" almost as if it was perfectly normal. The characters struggle with the idea at first, but in the end it's an accepted part of the story and a source of evidence for the mystery. My credibility was stretched farther that I usually like.

Outside of the overdone mystical element, I found A FINER END to be a very enjoyable mystery. I'll be reading more of Crombie's books in the future. When I do, though, I will be going back and picking up the Kincaid/Jones series from the beginning. I think other mystery fans will like these books as well as I do. Take my word for it and give them a try.