Sixth in the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James British police procedural Scotland Yard series. I absolutely love this series! The mysteries are interesting, the characters are fully-fleshed and very real, and the books are a nice blend of integrating the personal lives of the characters with a decent mystery. This one had its origins back in the Blitz of WWII and was set on the Isle of Dogs with a local businesswoman brutally murdered and laid out in Mudchute Park there. As the list of suspects grew and new clues were added via flashbacks into the past, the mystery became more mysterious and I truly had no idea who the murderer was until just before it was revealed. Always a nice surprise, since I often am able to pick out the murderer well in advance. I often will give some of my favorite series books an A simply for enjoyment and for the characters, but this one deserved an all-around A+ and gets it!

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Exciting, complicated but skillfully written!!

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One of the stronger installments in a very satisfying series.

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This series about Gemma James and Duncan Kincaid are some of my favorites. You can't go wrong with any of them.

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A nice balance of characterization (particularly Kincaid's relationship with his son) and a great whodunit.

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A murder mystery out of Scotland Yard. A good read.

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Scotland Yard's Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James face their most haunting case yet when the past devastatingly intersects with the present.... â The call from Scotland Yard couldn't have come at a worse time for Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid. He has promised the weekend to Kit, the eleven-year-old son of his ex-wife. The son he never knew he fathered -- who doesn't yet know Kincaid's true identity.

But Duncan's best intentions are shattered by an investigation that draws him in and swiftly consumes him. It seems to begin with the discovery of the body of a beautiful young woman in an East London park. But Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma James will discover that this case has long roots that reach far back into the past, and that resentments which should have been decades buried still have the power to hurt -- and maybe even the capacity to kill.

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The body of a lovely young woman is found in London's fashionable Docklands area. She turns out to be Annabelle Hammond, the director of an old family firm of tea merchants. She was a woman of tremendous talent and sexual appetite, but also the kind of harsh and abrasive personality that provides plenty of motives for murder. The Hammond family is also historically linked to the self-made property developer Lewis Finch and his son, an activist dropout and street musician. The other suspects include a spineless boyfriend who works at the tea firm, a secretary too loyal to be true, and herrings of various shades of crimson. Kincaid and James have to solve it all, even as their own personal problems threaten to intrude. Thanks to Crombie's enviable ability to bring people and places to life with a single phrase, the story zips along like the new Docklands electric railroad.

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