For anyone who has missed the previous
posts, I am re-reading the Deborah Crombie mysteries that I enjoyed
so much the first time as part of a reader challenge from another
blog. Last night I finished Leave the Grave Green, the third
book in the series.
The mystery in this one really
captivated me, and I'm pleased to say I really didn't remember enough
of the plot to take anything away from my reading pleasure. (I read
so many mysteries that I don't retain the details much. It is the
characters that stay with me. And that's why I choose the authors I
do!)
Leave the Grave Green begins
with a prologue scene that occurs over 20 years before the main
action of the story. I often find such scenes superfluous, but in
this case it is really integral to understanding the characters
involved when we meet them. Once we jump to the present, we also
jump right into the action. No long exposition here!
Other than Gemma and Duncan, the
Sergeant and Chief Inspector who are the constants throughout the
series, this mystery is centered in the world of opera and of titled
British gentry. There are lots of nice scenes where stereotypes are
set up just so they can be knocked down, and lots of interesting
tensions among the new characters and the ones we already know. And a
mystery so well crafted that I never saw the solution until it was
being revealed.
Here I run into a snag. The most
interesting thing about this book, to me, is the surprise twist in
the back story of the main characters. But since I anticipate that I
have readers who have not read these yet, and are still deciding
whether to read them, I don't want to include any spoilers. So all I
feel at liberty to say is that the end is a big surprise, and since
I've read the entire series before, trust me when I say that it all
works out well eventually.
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