TLC Book Tour: Garden of Lamentations

Deborah Crombie is an author not entirely unknown to me.  But although I've heard her name for quite a while, I have yet to read any of her work.  Upon a little research, Garden of Lamentations is part of a series - and although I usually try to read series novels in order, I felt like I caught on to this one enough that I wasn't totally lost and was still able to enjoy it.

Gemma James and Duncan Kinkaid are the two main characters in this series. Married to each other, they share many things, but in this story, they don't share much about their cases with each other.

Reagan, a young woman is found dead in a garden in Notting Hill. Gemma is drawn in to finding out what happened to her because she is the nanny of a boy that Gemma's son takes dance lessons with.  There is definitely something not quite right about a young woman dying in a garden one night.  And to make things worse, this is not the only death. There was another suspicious death a few months previous.

Duncan is struggling with his own issues. He is unhappy with work circumstances which has caused him to be relocated to a different department.  When he meets up with his former boss and finds the boss has been beaten and left for dead on his way home from their meeting, Kincaid begins to look into the possibility of some criminal activity within Scotland Yard and isn't sure who he can trust.  

I really liked this book, and I think it works as a stand alone novel. However, I will say that I think I would have enjoyed it even more had I read the previous books in the series and felt like I was catching up with some familiar characters, not just trying to meet up with a group of people I didn't know.

I will definitely put this series on my radar -and go back and start with Book #1.  I liked the British setting, the characters, the writing.....Deborah Crombie has a fantastic mystery series that was under my radar for far too long.  

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for providing a copy of this book for my review.  All opinions expressed are, as always, my own.

For more information, visit the HarperCollins website.