Mystery’s attractions ‘Lie’ in interaction between protagonists

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BY KANDRA HAHN / For the Lincoln Journal Star

(“Where Memories Lie” by Deborah Crombie, William Morrow, 295 pages, $24.95).

I don’t suppose we have to tell fans of Deborah Crombie’s 11 previous Kincaid/James police procedural murder mysteries that the 12th, “Where Memories Lie,” is out. But do they know Crombie will be in Lincoln on Wednesday, July 9?

Now that they do, let the rest of us catch up on the phenomenon and see whether we might want to be swept into it. It’s really very pleasant … if you take a little gruesome detail with your tea and whodunit. These stories are set in England, and they are contemporary but not gritty.

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Deborah Crombie reads in Lincoln July 9

Mystery writer Deborah Crombie reads and signs copies of her new work “Where Memories Lie” at Lee Booksellers at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 9.

Lee Booksellers is at 5500 S. 56th St.

Duncan Kincaid is a gent and Gemma James a lady, and both are Scotland Yard detectives. A newcomer to all of this, I’ve learned they have been partners since the first book in the series, “A Share in Death” in 1993. Then he was the superintendent, she the “down-to-earth sergeant,” and they were sleuthing away — would you believe? — on the Yorkshire moors?

In subsequent books, I understand, they ebb and flow through a generally stable personal and professional relationship, finding corpses and villains along the way. In this latest, we find them cohabitating with their sons in Notting Hill. The intricate plot flashes between 1939 London, home to many fleeing German Jews, and the present, when a long-lost brooch unseen since that time suddenly turns up at auction and people affiliated with it start dying.

One of the nicest things about this edition is the end papers that are London maps, charmingly denoted for the specific sites of the story. You’ll find yourself either reliving your last or planning your next trip to London as you trace the plot from World’s End to the British Museum.

There may be a reason Crombie’s books are so cozy for American readers. She’s a Yank, born and raised in Texas. Though she once married a Scot and lived in Edinburgh and Chester, England, she’s back in Texas, traveling two or three time a year to England, she says, to research the settings for her mysteries. Published in many languages, her books are particularly loved in Germany.

Crombie’s 1997 Kincaid/James book “Dreaming of the Bones” was a New York Times Book of the Year and judged one of the 100 Best Crime Novels of the Century, according to the Independent Mystery Booksellers of America.

Kandra Hahn has degrees in English and business and has worked as a reporter, a public servant, in publishing and nearly always in some way as a writer.