Where Memories Lie

I accidentally stepped into the middle of this mystery series when I read Where Memories Lie for a book discussion group.  Wow, what a well written mystery novel.  Deborah Crombie has written a well developed story line with realistic and complicated characters living real lives.  The mystery itself is involved, and not easily solved while reading the story.  Each turn of the page turns a corner and changes the dynamics of the case, introducing new material that makes the reader rethink the direction of the mystery.

Crombie also writes so well that though the series obviously develops the relationships of the main players and fleshes out characters as time progresses this book was so good that it could be read and enjoyed all on its own.  The reader never really feels like he has missed an important piece oHer great writing technique makes it easy enjoy on its own but also makes the reader curious to step into the world of Gemma James and Duncan Kincaid and get to know them more.

Gemma James and Duncan Kincaid's relationship have grown over the course of the series and now live together with their two sons.  They are working in different divisions of the police force, but for this case come together and share information.  They each have a partner, who Gemma actually tries to match up at a dinner party.  Also Gemma and Kincaid each have personal problems they have to deal with, making the characters more vulnerable and easier to connect with.  They have similar everyday problems that the reader can relate to.  Gemma's mother is in the hospital in this book and she has issues relating to her father and sister.  There is also of course the parenting problems of holding down a full time job and balancing child care and parenting time.

For this murder case, an old friend of Gemma's calls and is looking for information about a brooch that is up for auction.  When Gemma starts asking questions about the piece of jewelry people start dying.  As we read about the case at hand, we also are reading interspersed of an old case that has gone cold.  As the plot progresses of course these two intertwined story lines start to intersect and make more sense.  By the end you have quite a number of characters to remember and quite a few divergent stories coming together.

There is a map of the area at the beginning of the book, so you can follow the characters as they
traipse around following clues and sharing information.  It is interesting that for the most part they can walk everywhere they need to go.  Ahh... life in the city.  This is a captivating mystery story and this reader plans to go back and start at the beginning and read through all 16 novels in the series and then read Deborah Crombie's newest book coming out in 2016.  Quite a prolific writer!