Customer Reviews

Share in Death

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Deborah Crombie's first book A Share in Death in her series about Scotland Yard detective Duncan Kincaid and his Sergeant Gemma James shows great promise for the series. Duncan is taking advantage of a vacation at a timeshare in Yorkshire which his cousin has offered him. He looks forward to the week away from his professional responsibilities. Unfortunately, it soon becomes apparent that it will not be as relaxing as planned when Duncan discovers a body in the jacuzzi. Duncan realizes that he will have to participate in some capacity with the investigation for it to be resolve successfully.

It is a classic plot for a mystery with all of the suspects in one spot and forced to examine each others motives. People's mistakes lead them in to further danger. They begin to suspect each other and emotions heighten . To aid in the investigation, Duncan sends his capable sergeant Gemma on a fact-finding tour about the resident guests of the time share.

Characters are done with interest and the reader is caught up hoping that some are not involved in the felony and that others will not perish. Crombie skillfully uncovers a bit of information at a time until it is clear who the culprit is and there is the right amount of tension in hoping for apprehension.

At the conclusion of the book the reader is ready to read the next of the series.

This is exactly what most readers of "cozy" mysteries want when they sit down to read a new book. Scotland Yard detective Duncan Kincaid is on holiday at a time-sharing resort in Yorkshire when the assistant manager of the resort is electrocuted in the swimming pool. The local police official, who is both obnoxious and incompetent, is predictably unhappy with Kincaid's presence, and Kincaid compounds the situation with his inability to restrain his curiosity. A second murder soon follows, and a third seems imminent.

There are ample suspects, some of them likeable and some downright nasty. Every character seems to have at least a minor skeleton in his or her closet, and Crombie keeps the reader asking why Mr. X did that, or why Ms. Y was where she was at such-and-such a time - all the elements you're supposed to have when reading a mystery.

In short, nothing spectacularly memorable here, but a debut for Ms. Crombie which certainly makes me want to read the rest of her books.

Mystery fans are more than familiar with the classic premise of a murder at an isolated country house. Crombie updates that idea by making her house a time-share retreat. Our hero, Duncan Kincaid, has been given a week and finds himself sharing more than cocktails with the eclectic group of guests.

This is a pleasant, well paced read. There aren't any huge surprises or novel concepts. It's not a surprise that virtually every one of the guests has a secret or two. And the reader knows from the start that one of the guests must be the killer. Still, Crombie did a nice job of keeping me guessing. While the book isn't a page turner, it is an entertaining read.

I read this book mostly because it's the first in the Kincaid/James series that achieved a MacCavity award and Agatha and Edgar nominations for the fifth book in the series - Dreaming of Bones. I expect to enjoy the three books in between as I work my way to the award winning book.

This is my first book by author Deborah Crombie and I enjoyed it. She is not yet a master of the typical English "cozy" but she shows promise. So few authors do this sub genre anymore and it is nice to see Ms. Crombie trying and almost succeeding to fill the gap. All she needs is alittle more edge, a little more depth and she will have it perfectly. I will definetely pick up another of her books, as I am sure with more experience she is sure to perfect her craft.

Duncan Kincaid is an engaging detective hero, and Miss Crombie's writing style is very effective. I enjoyed the suspenseful buildup until near the end of the book--and then the conclusion ruined the carefully prepared plot. When a character who has already been nearly killed goes completely and idiotically out of her way to place herself in jeopardy, one sees the author's manipulation too clearly and tends to lose interest in whether or not the character survives. And when the hero suddenly makes an amazing and illogical mental leap to the precise answer to the mystery just in time to race to a last-second rescue, things are stretched even further. And when the murderer turns out to have efficiently killed two innocents who get in the way but stupidly flubs the one murder that he supposedly has been planning for months, it is just too much. And why on earth he would choose a vacation complex, enrolling himself as a guest, when he wishes to keep his tie with the intended victim secret, ah, that is the real mystery. What we have here is one of those impossible Martha Grimes plots. Now if you happen to like Martha Grimes, you may enjoy this book thoroughly.Having said this, I intend to give Deborah Crombie another chance and read one of her other Duncan Kincaid novels. This one does show real promise and real talent. If only the ending had been more believable.

This is the first Deborah Crombie mystery that I have read. It won't be the last! Duncan Kincaid is a very likeable Scotland Yard Superintendant. I get the feeling that he likes women for their own sake, and not simply because of physical attraction. The mystery itself is well plotted and provides an opportunity for the reader to deduce the murderer. I did not, but the clues were all there as the story unfolded about Kincaid's holiday at a time-share property in Yorkshire. This book has the authentic quality of an English mystery, but the author is an American. I recommend it as an excellent read.

A delightful, intelligent first novel. Duncan Kincaid is a likeable Scotland Yard detective and Gemma James is promising. I think I've hit on a whole new detective series. Martha Grimes, move over and Deb Crombie is a Texan! I was fooled and delighted! Read the publisher's review and enjoy the book. On to the next one! Air travel made so much easier now!

This may be a promising start to a new series, but I found this book quite simplistic (written at about Grade 4 level,) and the coincidences were a bit too much! Kinkaid appears to be a lame duck since he seems to yearn romantically about both women his age that he meets during the course of solving the murder. Also, I knew that it was an American author writing an English procedural (a la Elizabeth George and Martha Grimes who do it so skilfully), but I found that the story did not sound English and the characters did not sound and act like the English do. It didn't ring true. I will attempt to read another book in the series to see if it gets better. I was looking forward to beginning this series after I had read some of the reviews, so I am disappointed.

Most first books in a series can be rather tedious because of the time spent by the author establishing characters as well as plot. But Ms. Crombie did an excellent job keeping this interesting. I can't wait to read the next in the series. I predict Ms. Crombie will be giving Martha Grimes and Elizabeth George a run for the money!!! Excellent read!!

This is one of the best "underdone" mysteries I've read in a long time. I was impressed by the way she held my attention and I didn't know "who dun it?" until the last. I've read so many mysteries, I tend to solve them about midway through the book-and this one I didn't.

I am looking forward to reading others by her. I really enjoyed her protagonist in this book. He is refreshing.