Leave the Grave Green

By Deborah Crombie

When a body is found floating in the Thames river lock one damp and dreary morning, Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma James are summoned from Scotland Yard to the Chiltern Hills outside London. The dead man is Connor Swann, son-in-law of London’s most renowned opera personalities. And prints on his neck suggest that Swann was strangled.

As Duncan and Gemma explore the quiet woods above the Thames and the flamboyant world of London opera in search of answers, they discover a tangled web of family secrets and hidden emotions. And when Duncan finds himself dangerously drawn to a suspect, he and Gemma must sort out their complicated feelings for one another…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Release date: Feb 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9780330535083

Deborah Crombie

Deborah Crombie is a native Texan who has lived in both England and Scotland. She now lives in McKinney, Texas, sharing a house that is more than one hundred years old with her husband, two cats, and two German shepherds.

Reviews for Leave the Grave Green

[foggidawn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Duncan Kincaid and his sergeant Gemma James are called in when the son-in-law of a prominent musical family is found drowned in the Thames. There's an antagonistic wife, a heartbroken mistress, a weaselly bookie, and various other suspects. Can Kincaid work out whodunit without getting too personally involved?I was a little irritated at Kincaid in this one, for spoilery reasons, but will continue reading the series to see where things go.

[diana.hauser · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

LEAVE THE GRAVE GREEN by Deborah Crombie is a Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James Crime Novel Book 3.I was interested in this mystery series - the author was mentioned by the author, Louise Penny.Each title is a bit better-written; the plot has more detail and tension and the characters are more personal and fleshed-out. The sense of place is excellent and is a reason I seem to read series - the location or sense of place is very interesting to me.; along with the culture, customs and idiosyncrasies of an area.Kincaid and James seem to do most of their work ‘on their own’ and there are few references to their actual office/station or professional workplace, although the Thames Valley Force is mentioned frequently in this particular title.LEAVE THE GRAVE GREEN opens with the accidental drowning of young Matthew Asherton. Twenty years later, Connor Swann’s body is found floating in a Thames River lock. Both victims are connected to Julia Asherton - Matthew was her brother and Connor is her husband.Superintendent Duncan Kincaid is called to investigate along with his assistant, Sgt. Gemma James.Good title and good series.

[mirihawk · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow. These just keep getting better and better!! Real writing, and I didn't pick out the murderer till the end, right before they told us.

[olivermagnus · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Scotland Yard Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and his sergeant Gemma James are called to investigate a suspicious drowning in the countryside outside London. Connor Swann, son-in-law of conductor Sir Gerald Asherton and his wife, soprano, Dame Caroline Stowe, has been found floating in the Thames battered and bruised, under suspicious circumstances. Julia, the Ashertons' daughter, had recently left Connor, who was a drinker, a gambler and fond of other woman. Because of the Ashertons' high profile, the Chief Superintendent wants extra eyes on this. As they begin to question those close to Connor, they discover this isn't the first time the family has experienced a tragedy related to drowning. When Julia was a small girl, she and her brother, Matty, were walking along the lock when he also fell in and was swept to his death.

Was Connor pushed to his death? He and Julia were separated, though he was still close to her parents, and there are several other important suspects that need to be investigated. Kincaid finds himself strongly attracted to Julia and, to his embarrassment, acts in an improper fashion whenever he's around her. What makes it even worse is Julia is the prime suspect in her husband's murder. This leads to some problems between Duncan and Gemma, who are fighting their mutual attraction to one another.

This is a fairly slow moving story. It's a true police procedural where Duncan and Gemma interview suspects and try to tie their clues together. It's not action packed and thrilling. The characters are well developed and the interaction was appealing. This is the third book in this series and I think I'll continue to read a least one more of them. There are some changes to Duncan and Gemma's relationship in this book and I'm curious to see where they take us.

[bookswoman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Sgt. Gemma James are put on a case that could be an accident, a suicide or murder. With his influencial in-laws Connor is found dead in a river.

Duncan finds himself attracted to the widow and Gemma has a strange attraction to a close friend of the family.

There are plenty of characters and lots of twists and turns in the story and I'll admit I didn't even think of the actual killer as the one who "dun it".

Crombie is slowly revealing more of the background of the two main characters and how they interact with each other. I truly like the fact that there is no "info dump" and that she is building upon the characters.

Still a ways to go to catch up on this series.

[auntieknickers · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The relationship between Duncan Kincaid and his sergeant, Gemma James, becomes more complicated as they investigate the death of a senior police officer who wasn't quite what he seemed. Another very good entry in this fine series of police procedurals.

[stewartry · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I don’t know what made me think Leave the Grave Green was the first book in the Kincaid/James series. (I also thought it was a different series, which is just silly.) It isn’t the first book, but the third; but it was a fine place to start, even for someone like me who twitches a little starting in the middle of a series. The story: the son-in-law of a famous retired opera singer and her equally celebrated conductor husband is found dead in a country river, and because of the status of the dead man's in-laws Scotland Yard, in the persons of Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James, are called in. They discover that the dead man’s widow, an artist with an interesting slant on life, had not lived with him for quite a while. She had moved back with her parents, and he was living in the house she had bought, and yet he was in the habit of visiting with her parents every week. The relationships are bizarre – he seemed closer to her parents than she is, and the in-laws seem more upset by his death than the widow – and that’s emphasized when the story comes out about her little brother. He died when they were children, in much the same manner as her husband has. For some reason I had a hard time becoming comfortable with the partnership of Kincaid and James. I rather like them as characters; I'm fairly well accustomed to British police procedurals, so I don't think that was it. For some reason there was a disconnect between Kincaid and James, or between the pair of them and me. It's a different sort of partnership, at least among mysteries I'm familiar with: Kincaid is, while not peerage, upper class, while James is … not; she is in the throes of divorce and has a small son, while he is divorced long since. Their relationship changes in this novel, and that was at the same time the most interesting part of the story and also the most disturbing, given Kincaid's proclivities. Which is in a way indicative of the pacing and level of intensity of the murder mystery aspect of the book. It's not a thrill-a-minute chase through London; I've seen the tone compared to that of the cozy subgenre, which is very odd considering the seriousness with which it takes the murder. In a way there is a laid back feel, the cast of characters calmly exploring the family and professional relationships that surrounded the victim, composedly shuttling back and forth to London for interviews, coolly entering into something slightly more than a one night stand, and then perhaps another. Gemma James is the only person I remember as being rattled by anything. I liked the book. I don't know why I had been collecting the series when I saw them. I'll continue to do so, but I wasn't compelled to rush out and make sure I have a copy of every other book featuring Kincaid and James. But I did like it.

[kellyn_903682 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Duncan Kincaid is called in to investigate the suspicious death of Connor Swain. At first Kincaid wonders why Scotland Yard is working on this case but soon discovers that Connor is the son-in-law of two prominent people, a famous soprano and a well-known conductor. This is not the first tragic drowning experienced in this family. Twenty years ago the couple’s son, Matthew, who was twelve, drown in a creek in the presence of his sister. Now the sister’s husband has also drowned. Kincaid discovers that Julia and Connor no longer lived together, though Connor remained very close to his in-laws. Julia on the other hand interacted very little with her parents. Predictably Kincaid uncovers many family secrets as investigates this murder. The resolution of Julia’s feelings seemed somewhat contrived to me. On the other hand I really liked the way Crombie developed the relationship between Kincaid and Jones

[kmajort · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Series is growing well...

[empressreece · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Still reading and they have improved. Still a little slow sometimes but I obviously do enjoy it or I wouldnt keep reading...lol

[fmrox · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Scotland Yard's Superintendent Kincaid and Sargent James are asked to look into the mysterious death of small English town. As third in the series, Crombie really sticks to her two characters continuing to develop them and their relationship. The other characters of the novel, while fully described don't seem as true and almost stereotypical. The mystery is mediocre but the main protags are interesting enough to keep the story and for now, the series going.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Leave The Grave Green by Deborah Crombie is the third book that follows the exploits of DI Duncan Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma James. In this book their mutual attraction to each other brings them closer than ever, but does this do more harm than good? As these two detectives continue to dance around each other, they are also assigned to investigate the death of young man who is connected to a powerful family.This young man has been pulled out of a lock on the Upper Thames River. Not sure if this is an accident, a suicide or a murder, Scotland Yard is called in. While on the one hand we have this slow romance to follow and root for, this is first and foremost a police procedural, and when forensics fail to offer much in the way of evidence, Kincaid and James must handle the painstaking work of going over the clues, interviewing and re-interviewing all the various witnesses, as they absorb themselves in the drowned man’s life, and try to trace what actually happened.I am quite taken by both the main characters in this series, and I applaud the author’s adherence to police procedure. This book doesn’t hesitate to show the slow grind that police work can be, searching for the one wisp that will lead them in the right direction. I find these books quite involving with their blend of captivating romance and intriguing murder cases, and look forward to book number four.