Rating: 
Summary: New Age for Duncan and Gemma
Review: The magic of Glastonbury was more prevalent in this novel than the mystery. The story allowed the characters to develop, to move forward, and the mists of Avalon surrounded them. The mystery was intriguing, the characters were facinating, and the setting was incredible. You definitly don't know whodunnit, but that doesn't really matter as much as why and where. In what century, even. Beautiful story.
Rating: 
Summary: A Wonderfully Well-Written Mystery
Review: This book is beautifully written and Deborah Crombie has a way of weaving the very distant past into the present that is seamless and utterly beautiful. Her descriptions of the countryside around Glastonbury are also beautifully drawn, and it sure made me want to visit this ancient place. She draws her main characters very well, but it's her secondary characters that seem to come alive from the page. She is an incredibly talented writer. This book gets off to somewhat of a slow start, but once about halfway through the pace picks up and it moves very quickly. I find this book almost has a dreamlike atmosphere to it as Ms. Crombie spins her yarn and as she decribes things from the medieval ages and how it applies to the modern-day. Kincaid and Gemma go to Glastonbury at the request of Duncan's cousin. While there they meet all kinds of wonderful characters - some remnants from the hippy era, a very young unwed mother, a middle-aged female vicar, and Gemma particularly is touched by the magic of the place and of the old abbey. It turns out that ancient violence ends up cropping up in modern-day Glastonbury and Gemma and Duncan are on the tail of a killer. Are all the accidents and murders that are occuring around them committed by one person or more? That is something they have to find out before someone else pays the ultimate price with their life.
Rating:
Summary: A Wonderfully Well-Written Mystery
Review: This book is beautifully written and Deborah Crombie has a way of weaving the very distant past into the present that is seamless and utterly beautiful. Her descriptions of the countryside around Glastonbury are also beautifully drawn, and it sure made me want to visit this ancient place. She draws her main characters very well, but it's her secondary characters that seem to come alive from the page. She is an incredibly talented writer. This book gets off to somewhat of a slow start, but once about halfway through the pace picks up and it moves very quickly. I find this book almost has a dreamlike atmosphere to it as Ms. Crombie spins her yarn and as she decribes things from the medieval ages and how it applies to the modern-day. Kincaid and Gemma go to Glastonbury at the request of Duncan's cousin. While there they meet all kinds of wonderful characters - some remnants from the hippy era, a very young unwed mother, a middle-aged female vicar, and Gemma particularly is touched by the magic of the place and of the old abbey. It turns out that ancient violence ends up cropping up in modern-day Glastonbury and Gemma and Duncan are on the tail of a killer. Are all the accidents and murders that are occuring around them committed by one person or more? That is something they have to find out before someone else pays the ultimate price with their life.
Rating:
Summary: Another Great Deborah Crombie Book
Review: This book is excellent. I have found that Deborah Crombie always delivers with her books. There is so much to recommend this book: the writing itself is first-rate, the characterizations are spot-on, the mystery is intriguing, the subject matter is different from any other mystery I have read. And that brings up an interesting point - after I finished reading this book, I realized that the subject matter of unconscious writing did not distract from the mystery itself. I think that with most other writers I would have found myself distracted by thinking about the subject, wondering whether I could believe in it or not, etc. While reading this book, I simply accepted it as truth and I think that says something for Ms. Crombie's writing. She makes it easy to accept what you are reading without drawing attention to the fact that it might be a little "out there." This is not the best in the series as that would still have to be "Dreaming of the Bones," but this book is far above most any other mystery you will find on the storeshelves today.
Can't wait for the next in the series, "And Justice There is None."
Rating:
Summary: A Fine Mystery
Review: This book was certainly better than the last, although the mystical part was unexpected and unwanted. Kincaid and James relationship is doing better, but she still is struggling with the results of her selfishness. She is finding the results unexpected and unwanted as well.
A good read!
Rating: 
Summary: Not up to the usual standard
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: A Fine Book
Review: This is a book of great depth that manages to combine a modern mystery with two completely different dimensions - one historical and one spiritual.Writing a good mystery is an art in itself. I've reviewed a lot of them and it takes a really good writer to make me care about the characters as people and to feel involved in their lives and their tribulations. Usually I read them in a detached way, assessing the characterization, setting, dialogue and so on. This story grabbed me from the beginning and I cared about Jack, Winnie, Fiona and the others and what happened to them. I found the setting completely engrossing - Glastonbury has depth and dimensions of history that the writer has portrayed accurately. This tale requires a great amount of suspension of disbelief, but it worked and worked well for me. I am always impressed that an American woman can express English life, especially one eccentric corner of it, so precisely. It's not jut acute observation, it's an understanding of the feelings under the surface. This is a really good English mystery novel, with an unexpected bonus of present evils woven into ancient wrongs. The writer's understanding of the thinness of the veil between the Old religion and the New, as well as the possibility, in certain circumstances, of the collapsing of time to reach others across the centuries is well balanced. This could have been mawkish and New Age precious but it isn't. The writer nails perfectly these spiritual and temporal ambiguities. This is a fine book in a good series.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: This is a different story line from her other books. Kincaid and Gemma are there but it is more a story centering on Glastonbury Abbey and the people involved with it. It was quite interesting. Gemma's secret is revealed at the end, so I am looking forward to the next edition. The last 90 pages of the book are very exciting and you waver back and forth on who the murderer is. That's a good book! Waiting for Ms Crombie's next....
Rating:
Summary: A Great Read!
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: An atmospheric, absorbing entry in the Kincaid/James series
Review: This latest Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James police procedural is set in Glastonbury. There is a very strong sense of the place here - its history, geography, and strong, sometimes creepy atmosphere permeate everything. Duncan's cousin and childhood friend Jack Montfort calls him for help when violence impacts his life. Duncan and Gemma oblige, traveling to see Jack and to look into the lives and relationships of his friends and neighbors. His girlfriend is an Anglican priest with an angry brother and a painter friend who can't seem to stop painting the same image. Jack's circle also includes a renowned author, a lovelorn clerk at a New Age bookstore, and a Goddess-worshiping tilemaker who is fiercely (over?)protective of her ward, a pregnant teen. Strange happenings in Glastonbury's past and present seem to have an equally strong power over everyone there. I liked this book very much, but I can see why some may feel differently. The plotting/mystery elements are a little weak, and there's a strong woo-woo element which some readers might (understandably) find unbelievable. Still, there is much to enjoy here. Crombie's writing is, as always, elegant. It usually takes me a couple of chapters to really get into one of her books, but this one grabbed me right away. It's atmospheric, absorbing, and well-paced, and the characters are unique and intriguing. I also liked the depiction of Duncan and Gemma's struggles with their personal and professional roles.
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