A Finer End

A Finer End by Deborah Crombie is the seventh mystery featuring Scotland Yard detectives Duncan Kincaid and Gemma Jones. Although I wasn’t totally enamoured of the plot in this book, the author’s wonderful writing and multilayered characters totally drew me along until I literally couldn’t put the book down. Steering away from the traditional police procedural that usually forms the framework for these mysteries, this story was filled with touches of the supernatural.

The author has set the story in the ancient town of Glastonbury, Duncan’s cousin Jack is receiving messages from a 10th century monk in the form of automated writings. A small group gather to help Jack explore what these messages mean, but among this small group show more there are troubled souls and dark secrets. When violence erupts, Jack contacts Duncan and he and Gemma arrive to find one murder has already occurred.

As well as solving crime together, Duncan and Gemma have a personal relationship that has been slowly evolving over the course of the books. Gemma is now taking steps to separate their personal lives and their working lives, and she has a secret to divulge that could possibly change everything.

I love this series, and this couple and although I am too much of a skeptic to totally accept the paranormal elements in this particular story, I still found myself enjoying the book a lot. I am looking forward to continuing on with the series. show less

No. 7 for Duncan Kincaid and Emma James. Duncan's cousin calls him to Glastonbury to help sort out some supernatural shenanigans. Naturally, he asks Gemma (recently promoted to Inspector, so no longer working at his side) to go along for a holiday. Of course, a holiday is not what they get, as something wicked has beat them to the Tor. Sorry to say this one just didn't work well for me. I don't know if Crombie was trying to be Anya Seton or Dan Brown, but the combination of new age practices, serious research into Grail lore, and otherwise ordinary people receiving messages from long- and not-so-long-dead souls felt bolloxed up and garbled in transmission. I can enjoy this kind of thing in its Midsomer Murders tongue-in-cheek versions, show more but imposing it on a couple of Scotland Yard detectives I've come to know as well-grounded through six previous novels was a fail. show less

A FINER END by Deborah Crombie is the 7th title in the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James mystery series.
I quite liked this book and thought Ms. Crombie weaved the mythology, local lore, Arthurian legends, monastic life, and history into a very readable, tense, contemporary mystery.
I especially loved the map and the quotes which introduced each chapter.
The characters were interesting and the plot very intricate. The plot worked well with the location. The sense of place was very strong.
I especially liked the passage that describes the word enchantment. “The word enchantment is derived from ‘chant’. The ancients believed that music was the strongest magic, that it kept man in tune with the cosmos and in harmony with one another.”
And this show more note. “ Out of all the Grail mythology entwined with Glastonbury over the centuries, there is one legend that says the Grail is not an object - not a cup or a chalice - but a transcendent state of being, brought about by ritual and prayer.”
There is a certain feel or vibration in the Glastonbury air. I can understand why authors would try to weave local beliefs, local lore and history into a contemporary plot.
Duncan and Gemma have somewhat minor roles in this particular title. Duncan’s cousin (who lives in Glastonbury) asks for his help in sorting out a hit and run incident. A weekend ‘getaway’ turns into a full-blown murder inquiry for Duncan and Gemma.
Great title in a great series. show less

Kincaid and James #7.
"When Duncan Kincaid's cousin Jack calls from Glastonbury to ask for his help on a rather unusual matter, Duncan welcomes the chance to spend a relaxing weekend outside of London with Gemma - but relaxation isn't on the agenda. Glastonbury is revered as the site of an ancient abbey, the mythical burial place of King Arthur and Guinevere, and a source of strong druid power. Jack has no more than a passing interest in its history - until he comes across an extraordinary chronical almost a thousand years old. The record reveals something terrible and bloody shattered the abbey's peace long ago - knowledge that will spark violence that reaches into the present. Soon it is up to Duncan and Gemma to find the truth the show more local police cannot see. But no one envisions the peril that lies ahead - or that there is more at stake than they ever dreamed possible." - jacket notes from the Bantam 2002 edition.
I found the mystical-spiritual aspects of this case irritating, and like others in the series better. If you like mysteries with quite a bit of space devoted to the personal lives of the detectives, then this is a good series, though the drama can get in the way of the crime-solving at times. show less

Each book in Crombie's series becomes richer, more complex and engaging, and moving.

This one about a tourist town with the attraction of Glastonbury's Abbey, with its medieval history of monks, music, power plays and violence, as well the raw forbidding tangible pull of the Tor is utilized as background for a modern day mystery of pregnancy, love, fear and spirituality.

The book's focus on the search for documentation of the old compelling church chants brought to mind Louis Penny's The Beautiful Mystery about a monastery and its music.

It was a pleasure meeting excellent characters Jack, Winnie, Faith and Nick.

Good read.

Not my favorite of this series. I don't care for the more mystic elements here - at least not in a series that is otherwise grounded in reality. I also found myself well and truly annoyed by the developments in the relationship between Duncan and Gemma. Not so much by what happens, but by how that all goes down, and particularly by the lack of communication between them. I'm growing tired of how each move forward in their relationship seems to happen by accident, or under stress, or due to some other outside force. Can't two people just love each other and choose to be together?

Duncan Kincaid’s cousin Jack Montfort has been plagued with spells of automatic writing, evidently from an early medieval monk attached to the Abbey at Glastonbury. He and a number of friends are working energetically to discover what it’s all about, but when his girlfriend, the local vicar, is injured in a car accident and then another person associated with the group is found dead, ostensibly drowned, Jack calls on Duncan to help him figure out the case. In the meantime, Gemma James is keeping a secret while she tries to help a young pregnant girl who is also involved in mystery at Glastonbury….This is the seventh Kincaid/James novel, and at last I feel caught up in my reading of this series as the next book, "And Justice There show more Is None," is one that I read in 2018, completely out of sequence. I enjoyed the character relationships, as per usual, and the Glastonbury setting was quite exotic and mysterious, but the actual causes of the crimes didn’t really live up to the suggestive nature of the tale; a mild recommendation from me, then. show less