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A review by billymac1962
Mourn Not Your Dead by Deborah Crombie
4.0
Despite the fact that I have a love/hate relationship with serieseses, I am always on the hunt for excellence. I do love having something to fall back on, the familiarity of revisiting characters and experiencing their developments, with great story lines, is fantastic, but on the other hand there is
the time commitment and unfortunately familiarity can breed contempt at times.
I am so glad I didn't give up on this series.
I had initially started it based on Louise Penny's recommendation when she was asked who her favourite authors are. At the time I was about 7 books into her Three Pines series and was loving them. (I had major issues with book 9 which totally stonewalled me from continuing, but that's another story.)
Anyway, she had mentioned Deborah Crombie, and little wonder. Set in the UK, the mysteries are set in little villages and are very character driven, very much like Penny's mostly excellent series.
I had rated A Share in Death a conservative three stars. It was OK, a little uneven where the pacing was concerned, but I did like the characters she created, and her writing was very good. I knew that the series improved over time, so I was looking forward to continuing, and the books are reasonably short.
Shortly after, I read All Shall Be Well and came out of that one with an enthusiastic five stars :)
This book had it all: an enticing mystery, excellent characters, and great narrative & dialogue. I was very excited!
Then, book three, Leave the Grave Green. A disappointing two stars. Damn.
Although the good writing was still there, I found the novel dragged quite a bit to the point where I was finding it dull. I was unsure whether I would continue. So many other books on my to-read list, you see, and I ain't getting any younger. But I never forgot about it. A couple of weeks ago I started skimming over reviews of the series and convinced myself to keep with it. To be more specific, it was Julie's reviews that made this an easy decision, like this one:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2136599759?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
So: Mourn Not Your Dead.
I'm rating this one an enthusiastic 4 stars. It had everything I like. Again, very strong characters, some wise insight, a good mystery, and some good development with the relationship between Kincaid and James.
The great thing I found about this book is something that is common with the first three: upon starting it, there was a way in which my mind and body totally relaxed as the story began. There aren't a whole lot of authors who have that immediate effect on me, so this is pretty huge.
Given the amount of reading time available to me over the past week, I still managed to get through it rather quickly. Interesting characters is everything for me and there were plenty in this one. Particularly Madeline Wade, and I hope we see more of her in the future. As I said earlier, this novel had a very strong Three Pines vibe to it, in the best of ways. If I could find one knock against it, I wish she would have added a bit more physical descriptions to some of her characters. A few I could picture vividly, particularly Madeline and young Geoff, but I had a hard time remembering the physical aspects of some of the other characters.
I'm sure all were described at one point, but it would have been nice to have some gentle mentions as reminders, which she certainly did with Madeline.
Now, this could also totally be a mental deficiency on my part.
Bottom line, this was quite good, and I'm looking forward to continuing!
the time commitment and unfortunately familiarity can breed contempt at times.
I am so glad I didn't give up on this series.
I had initially started it based on Louise Penny's recommendation when she was asked who her favourite authors are. At the time I was about 7 books into her Three Pines series and was loving them. (I had major issues with book 9 which totally stonewalled me from continuing, but that's another story.)
Anyway, she had mentioned Deborah Crombie, and little wonder. Set in the UK, the mysteries are set in little villages and are very character driven, very much like Penny's mostly excellent series.
I had rated A Share in Death a conservative three stars. It was OK, a little uneven where the pacing was concerned, but I did like the characters she created, and her writing was very good. I knew that the series improved over time, so I was looking forward to continuing, and the books are reasonably short.
Shortly after, I read All Shall Be Well and came out of that one with an enthusiastic five stars :)
This book had it all: an enticing mystery, excellent characters, and great narrative & dialogue. I was very excited!
Then, book three, Leave the Grave Green. A disappointing two stars. Damn.
Although the good writing was still there, I found the novel dragged quite a bit to the point where I was finding it dull. I was unsure whether I would continue. So many other books on my to-read list, you see, and I ain't getting any younger. But I never forgot about it. A couple of weeks ago I started skimming over reviews of the series and convinced myself to keep with it. To be more specific, it was Julie's reviews that made this an easy decision, like this one:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2136599759?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
So: Mourn Not Your Dead.
I'm rating this one an enthusiastic 4 stars. It had everything I like. Again, very strong characters, some wise insight, a good mystery, and some good development with the relationship between Kincaid and James.
The great thing I found about this book is something that is common with the first three: upon starting it, there was a way in which my mind and body totally relaxed as the story began. There aren't a whole lot of authors who have that immediate effect on me, so this is pretty huge.
Given the amount of reading time available to me over the past week, I still managed to get through it rather quickly. Interesting characters is everything for me and there were plenty in this one. Particularly Madeline Wade, and I hope we see more of her in the future. As I said earlier, this novel had a very strong Three Pines vibe to it, in the best of ways. If I could find one knock against it, I wish she would have added a bit more physical descriptions to some of her characters. A few I could picture vividly, particularly Madeline and young Geoff, but I had a hard time remembering the physical aspects of some of the other characters.
I'm sure all were described at one point, but it would have been nice to have some gentle mentions as reminders, which she certainly did with Madeline.
Now, this could also totally be a mental deficiency on my part.
Bottom line, this was quite good, and I'm looking forward to continuing!