Where Memories Lie
by Deborah Crombie
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Book Summary Information
Author: Deborah CrombieEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-06-30
ISBN: 0061287520
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Avon
Book Reviews of Where Memories Lie
Book Review: I'm a big fan of this author - discovered her years ago -- but this isn't my favorite by her.
Summary: 4 Stars
I don't know why, because it's an excellent book. Perhaps the Holocaust theme is just so serious and distressing... Another problem for me was just trying to get into the book. The first forty pages or so are snippets from a variety of story lines involving various characters and two different time periods (present and post World War II London), and it's a bit choppy. You know it's going to all come together somehow, but in the meantime, it can be a bit of a challenge managing all the different threads, different characters, etc. ("Now who is Henri?" I found myself asking, and having to flip back to find the answer).
The plot involves a fabulously expensive and beautiful brooch, which has turned up for auction after having been lost for decades -- since World War II. It is placed for auction in "Harrowby's" (clearly Sotheby's. Erika, the former owner (and daughter of the man who made the brooch), hears about this and asks her police detective friend to look into the matter. Before you know it, people involved with the brooch are dying -- all they seem to have in common is a connection to the brooch, but who is killing them and why? There is a mystery about where the brooch has been all these years, and Erika is clearly keeping some secrets about the past.
As with all of Crombie's mysteries, we hear more about the personal lives of Gemma and Duncan, police investigators and live-together partners. Somehow or other, I preferred the series when Gemma and Duncan were simply working together in the London police -- it was far more believable that they would be working together on cases, and I personally don't find the domestic life of this couple very engaging. The characters just never seem real enough for me to care very much about them, and breakfast routines are simply not interesting no matter how much you like the characters!
Still, this mystery is well worth reading, particularly if you like British police procedurals. I think one of my favorite parts of this series is the London setting -- I can imagine myself right there.
Summary of Where Memories Lie
?Comparisons with Elizabeth George are inevitable . . . Crombie?s emotionally intense, quietly yet exquisitely wrought gems have taken on a new brilliance with each offering? The Times Detective Inspector Gemma James and her family are back in their Notting Hill house and enjoying a quiet spring in London when Gemma receives a plea for help from her friend and neighbour, Erika Rosenthal. Erika has never shared much of her past, other than telling Gemma that she and her husband came to London before the war as refugees from Nazi Germany. Her long-dead husband was a historian and was found murdered. His murder was never solved. But now the elderly woman needs Gemma?s help. Gemma has a tough challenge. It?s a cold case and one that she has neither the time nor the resources to investigate. But then a tragic death places the investigation firmly in the present ? and into the hands of her partner Scotland Yard Superintendent Duncan Kincaid. Determined to exact justice both Gemma and Duncan hunt down a chilling killer in a case that will have lasting repercussions for everyone involved . . .Women's Fiction Books
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