Five Star Expressions - The Cymry Ring [Hardcover]

Michael Allen Dymmoch (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 159414429X | ISBN-13: 978-1594144295 | Publication Date: March 2, 2006 | Edition: 1

Ian Carreg, a charming detective with a career he loves, is coming to terms with the recent death of his wife and middle age. He's sent to apprehend a convicted felon, Jemma Henderson. She is a gifted surgeon with beauty to match and the daughter of a famous physicist - and a murderer. When he pursues her to Cymry Henge, something - or someone - knocks him out cold. He regains consciousness in a strange yet oddly familiar place - second-century Roman Britain. An encounter with three armed horsemen leads to an extended stay in the horsemen's village. Then the Roman cavalry arrives, and Ian and Jemma must fight to save their lives. They become Roman prisoners, and Ian starts to doubt his sanity. When their captors send them on a journey Ian finally accepts the truth - just in time to join with Jemma in foiling a conspiracy that could alter history.

Michael Allen Dymmoch has served as president and secretary of the Midwest Chapter of Mystery Writers of America, and newsletter editor for the Chicagoland chapter of Sisters in Crime.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Dymmoch takes a break from his Jack Caleb and John Thinnes mystery series to try his hand at a time-travel detective tale that stars widower Ian Carreg of Scotland Yard. Asked to visit a famous physicist to see if he's harboring his beautiful surgeon daughter, Jemma Henderson, who is wanted for the murder of her lover, Ian is directed to the last place she was seen, a circle of stones called Cymry Henge. He races to the henge and is abruptly transported back many centuries to Roman Britain. Jemma is there, but so are the locals. The horsemen take Ian and Jemma back to their village, where they live and work among them until the Romans show up and make them prisoners. Ian refuses to believe he's truly in the past, and fears for his sanity, yet manages to join forces with Jemma to prevent disaster. The reader's reaction mirrors Ian's incredulity in Dymmoch's skillfully written, wonderfully entertaining, and fascinatingly detailed story of an unusual form of sleuthing. Maria Hatton
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 322 pages
• Publisher: Five Star; 1 edition (March 2, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159414429X
• ISBN-13: 978-1594144295
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,489,867 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael Dymmoch was born in Illinois and grew up in a suburb northwest of Kentucky. As a child she she kept a large number of small vertebrates for pets and aspired to become a snake charmer, Indian chief, or veterinarian. She was precluded from realizing the former ambitions by a lack of charm and Indian ancestry, and from the achieving the latter profession by poor grades in calculus and physics. This made her angry enough to kill. Fortunately, before committing mayhem, she stumbled across a book titled MAYBE YOU SHOULD WRITE A BOOK and was persuaded to sublimate her felonious fantasies. Moving to Chicago gave Michael additional incentives to harm individuals who piss her off. On paper of course.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Slow moving and dry, June 24, 2006

By 

J. D. Kennedy - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Five Star Expressions - The Cymry Ring (Hardcover)

When I first read about this book, I was extremly exciited. It combined historical fiction with, what I thought would be a compelling mystery. Neither of the these components turned out to be interesting or enlightening in any way. The story started out slowly, and dully, and remained that way through most of the book. I forced myself to finish it, thinking the ending would compensate for its lack of entertaining material in the rest of it. It hardly did. For those of you who are looking for an intriguing novel that will provide new details about ancient Britian, or time travel, I would suggest you find another book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 2.5 stars - Definitely not Dymmoch's best work, June 16, 2006

By 

L. J. Roberts (Oakland, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Five Star Expressions - The Cymry Ring (Hardcover)

CID detective Ian Carreg is a widower with grown children and a grandchild on the way. Dr. Jemma Henderson is a physician and daughter of a physicist; she is also wanted for murder in America. When Carreg follows Jemma into a shed on Cyrmy Henge, he is knocked unconscious. He wakes up, with Jemma in Roman Britten during the Iron Age.

I have always been a fan of Dymmoch's writing. I am also a fan of time travel. Unfortunately, neither work very well in this book. Not only was there no logical explanation for how the time travel happened, there really wasn't any explanation at all. There was also no logical loop connecting a talisman from the present to the past and back to the present, which could have been resolved with just a bit more thinking. The history was fascinating and I learned quite a bit about the period, but the characters were flat, as was the story. I kept expecting to feel more involved and just never did. So why did I rate it "Okay" rather than "Poor." Because I did finish the book, fairly easily, shall definitely keep reading other books by Ms. Dymmoch and, overall, recommend her as an author. Just don't judge the author by this particular novel.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars special time travel thriller, April 14, 2006

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Five Star Expressions - The Cymry Ring (Hardcover)

Fifty-five years old English CID Detective Ian Carreg is still coming to grips over the death of his beloved wife Marjorie, who died when an out of control speeding car hit her. Though he "talks" to his Marjorie, he keeps himself busy though his two adult children Peter and Margaret worry about him.

CID sends Ian to arrest escaped felon Dr. Jemma Henderson, daughter of renowned physicist Dr. Marcus Henderson, convicted of murdering her lover. He heads to her dad's home where he enters a shed in Cymry Henge just before an explosion occurs. He soon realizes that somehow Jemma sent both of them back seventeen centuries to Roman Britannia where they confront and then befriend three Welsh. Captured by the Roman legions, the pair with their new friends struggle to survive while trying to insure future history remains the same while trying to figure out a way to tell her father and his children they live albeit over a millennium before they were born.

THE CYMRY RING starts off like a typical police procedural tale until her father's machine successfully sends them back seventeen hundred years and switches into a time travel thriller. The story line is action-packed especially in Roman times as the "settlers" from the twenty-first century fight to stay alive in a world so different than their birth time. Ian and Jemma are believable characters, easy to understand so readers empathize with their plight. This is a special tale told by a master storyteller.

Harriet Klausner