Where Memories Lie [Paperback]

Deborah Crombie (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: William Morrow (2007)
• ASIN: B001GN1KHM
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,132,097 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Deborah Crombie grew up near Dallas, Texas, but from a child always had the inexplicable feeling that she belonged in England. After earning a Bachelor's degree in Biology from Austin College in Sherman, Texas, she made her first trip to Britain and felt she'd come home. She later lived in both Chester, England, and Edinburgh, Scotland, where she failed to make as good a use of being cold and poor as JK Rowling.

It was not until almost a decade later that, living once more in Texas and raising her small daughter, she had the idea for her first novel, a mystery set in Yorkshire. She had no credentials other than a desire to write and a severe case of homesickness for Britain. A Share in Death, published in 1993, was short-listed for both Agatha and Macavity awards for Best First Novel and was awarded the Macavity.

Crombie's fifth novel, Dreaming of the Bones, was a New York Times Notable Book in 1997, was named by the Independent Mystery Booksellers as one of the 100 Best Crime Novels of the Century, was an Edgar nominee for Best Novel, and won the Macavity award for Best Novel.

Subsequent novels have been published to critical acclaim and in a dozen languages. Crombie's fourteenth novel featuring Metropolitan Police detectives Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Inspector Gemma James, No Mark Upon Her, will be published by Harper Collins in February 2012.

The author still lives in Texas but spends several months out of the year in Britain, maintaining a precarious balance between the two, and occasionally confusing her cultural references.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Yesterday her life had cracked open and there could be no putting it back.", July 6, 2008

By 

E. Bukowsky "booklover10" (NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Where Memories Lie: A Novel (Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James Novels) (Hardcover)

In Deborah Crombie's "Where Memories Lie," Superintendant Duncan Kincaid and Detective Inspector Gemma James have settled into domestic tranquility with their sons from former relationships, thirteen-year-old Kit and five-year-old Toby. Kincaid works in Scotland Yard and Gemma is stationed in Notting Hill. Although they are no longer professional partners, they still depend on one another for advice and support. Gemma's friend, Erika Rosenthal, is a retired academic who left Berlin with her husband, David, at the beginning of World War II. One evening, Erika asks Gemma to come over to discuss an important matter. It seems that an Art Deco brooch made of diamonds set in platinum has surfaced and is about to be auctioned off at a house called Harrowby's. Erika's late father, Jakob Goldshtein, was a master jewelry maker who created this exquisite item in 1938 and gave it to his daughter. It was stolen from her fifty years ago under tragic circumstances and she never expected to see it again. Erika asks Gemma to find out how a British auction house managed to acquire Jakob's masterpiece. Gemma agrees to make inquiries, not realizing that her visit to Harrowby's will set off alarms in the mind of a cold-blooded killer.

The author makes excellent use of flashbacks to 1952 London, in which an inspector named Gavin Hoxley investigates the murder of Erika Rosenthal's husband. Gemma studies Gavin's case notes, and as she learns more about Erika and David's lives, she begins to realize how the past and the present have converged, "as if time had rippled." Duncan and Gemma team up, pooling their resources to solve a series of brazen homicides. Meanwhile, Gemma has problems of a more personal nature. Her dad, Ern Walters, who always treats her with a touch of disdain, shows up at her home one evening while she is out. He tells Duncan that Gemma's mum, Vi, has collapsed and is in the hospital. Since Vi has always been lively, independent, and energetic, Gemma is dismayed to learn that her mother has a serious illness with an uncertain prognosis. Gemma is also guilt-ridden because her busy schedule has kept her from looking in on her parents more often. She struggles to come to terms with her mother's illness, her father's resentment, and her fear of accepting Duncan's marriage proposal.

Crombie has assembled a varied and colorful cast. Gemma and Duncan are soul mates who are enjoying their well-earned contentment after years filled with misfortune and heartbreak. Erika Rosenthal is a dignified and self-sufficient woman who keeps her own counsel until she is ready to tell her horrifying tale. Kristin Cahill is an ambitious and attractive girl with an art history degree who is employed at Harrowby's. She is in love with Dominic Scott, a "pretty boy" with bad habits and unsavory associates. Dom's mother, Ellen Miller-Scott is a beautiful, haughty, and wealthy woman who disapproves of her son's irresponsible behavior. Harry Pevensey is a pretentious actor in decline. In spite of his shrinking bank account, he still has a taste for the finer things in life and is hoping for a substantial "payoff from the recent little financial gamble he had let himself be talked into, against his better judgment." Doug Cullen, Kincaid's sergeant, is unlucky in love and is uneasy when Gemma tries to match him up with one of her colleagues, DC Melody Talbot.

Her effortless writing style, smooth dialogue, and strong characterizations make this one of Crombie's most satisfying works. She skillfully demonstrates how events that date back half a century have a way of reaching out and influencing the present. In addition, Crombie shows the disastrous consequences of prejudice, greed, ambition, and pride. "Where Memories Lie" works on many levels--as an intriguing murder mystery, an exploration of an appalling chapter in European history, and a deeply affecting tale of complex personal relationships. This is a poignant and engrossing installment in a deservedly long-running and popular series.

39 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 12th in a series and one of the best...even, perhaps, THE best, June 30, 2008

By 

Sharon Isch (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Where Memories Lie: A Novel (Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James Novels) (Hardcover)

Deborah Crombie is a Texan who writes a fabulous British mystery series. Now in its 12th installment, her Duncan Kincaid-Gemma James mysteries are complex, involving and cleverly crafted; the progression of the love story between the two cops and their interactions with friends and family is compelling; the secondary characters, good and bad, are always exceptionally well drawn. But this one, which focuses on Gemma's old friend Erika Rosenthal and what happens when a long missing and valuable old diamond brooch of hers turns up at a London auction house, is just superb and gets my vote as Crombie's best yet. If you're already a fan of the series you'll remember Erika from earlier appearances in the series and will have doubtless come to like her as much as Gemma does. Now it would appear that several seemingly unconnected murders, both past and present, can only be solved by digging all the way back to Nazi Germany and Erika's sad and, till now, closely guarded history.


If once you've finished this gem, you find you'd like to go back and follow the Duncan & Gemma story from the beginning (highly recommended as you're sure to gain a richer appreciation for Crombie's work and her characters), here's the list, updated in April 2011: 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 and 13. Necessary as Blood

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Quality you expect from Deborah Crombie, July 9, 2008

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Where Memories Lie: A Novel (Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James Novels) (Hardcover)

The horrors of Nazi Germany reach across time and awaken buried memories and guarded secrets.

Twelfth novel in a series by award-winning Deborah Crombie, this latest crime thriller, Where Memories Lie, features main characters, Duncan Kincaid, an inspector with Scotland Yard and Gemma James, an inspector with the Metropolitan Police. The earlier books developed the careers, relationship and romance of Duncan and Gemma, and in this one, they are sharing a home, their lives and their sons.

In the late 1930s a renowned German jeweler made a diamond brooch for his daughter and gave it to her as she and her husband fled from Nazi Germany. The brooch was stolen from her in Germany and has now resurfaced more than fifty years later in an auction house in London.

Erika Rosenthal, original owner of the brooch and now a widow, has established a successful academic life but has kept her past closed off to everyone including herself. The reappearance of the brooch has brought it all to the front, and now Erika has asked Gemma to find out how the brooch came to be in London. But soon people connected to the brooch begin to be murdered, and Scotland Yard is called in. Gemma and Duncan, working together again, are drawn into the sometime deceptive and apparently dangerous world of art collecting.

A connection to a 1952 murder is intermingled into the present story. A young Erika identifies the body of her murdered husband who had been writing a book about the Nazis and their German sympathizers-some still alive and free at the time. The detective assigned to the case is ordered to drop his investigation, and he also ends up dead when he refuses.

The priceless brooch connects all the murders and Erika's memories hold the key to the secrets someone will kill to protect.

Fear, guilt, greed and cover-ups drive the emotions and tragedy in this suspenseful, complex story that was hard to put down. Although this is a series, it is a stand-alone plot with a continuation of the lives and Duncan and Gemma.

Armchair Interviews says: Another great addition to the series.