#11 Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James British police procedural. It's Christmas, and Duncan and Gemma have both wangled time off so they can be off to visit Duncan's parents in Nantwich over Christmas week with their kids. It's a nerve-wracking time, as Gemma has only briefly met Duncan's mother (at his first wife's funeral!) and never his father, and is wondering how they will like her and how their odd, cobbled-together family will fit in.

But there's no time to really worry about it much; Duncan's sister Juliet, who recently started her own company doing building renovations, while breaking some concrete in a dairy barn on Christmas Eve just before she's set to leave to meet the family for dinner, discovers the long-dead body of an infant walled up inside. Before long, there's another (freshly murdered!) corpse, also found by a member of the Kincaid family, not far from the barn where the baby was found. Is there a connection? Family tensions run high as Juliet and her husband Caspar initiate a very public split, and Kit begins to realize how troubled his cousin Lally (Juliet and Caspar's daughter) is, and has been for some time, apparently.

Never mind that I spotted the bad guy early on--I love this series, and Crombie always seems to manage the right balance of police work with personal scenarios, and often a bit of social commentary or information about a given area or segment of the population as well. (In this book, the subculture of the boating community--people who live on boats and navigate up and down the rivers and canals--and how they live.) Very interesting, very well done, and I'm very much looking forward to her newest book.

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Latest in the Duncan Kincaid Gemma James saga. Very good.

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This book involves Kincaid's family and keeps you guessing.

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Once again, Crombie writes a wonderful Brit mystery. Very satisfying.

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When Scotland Yard superintendent Duncan Kincaid takes Gemma, Kit, and Toby for a holiday visit to his family in Cheshire, Gemma is soon entranced with Nantwich's pretty buildings and the historic winding canal, and young Kit is instantly smitten with his cousin Lally. But their visit is marred by family tensions exacerbated by the unraveling of Duncan's sister Juliet's marriage. And tensions are brought to the breaking point on Christmas Eve with Juliet's discovery of a mummified infant's body interred in the wall of an old dairy barn--a tragedy hauntingly echoed by the recent drowning of Peter Llewellyn, a schoolmate of Lally's. Meanwhile, on her narrowboat, former social worker Annie Lebow is living a life of self-imposed isolation and preparing for a lonely Christmas, made more troubling by her meeting earlier in the day with the Wains, a traditional boating family whose case precipitated Annie's leaving her job. As the police make their inquiries into the infant's death, Kincaid discovers that life in the lovely market town of his childhood is far from idyllic and that the dreaming reaches of the Shropshire Union Canal hold dark and deadly secrets . . . secrets that may threaten everything and everyone he holds most dear.

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As usual Crombie doesn't disapoint. This was a well written suspenseful mystery that kept me guessing between 2 or 3 characters until the end. I loved meeting Duncan's family and seeing more of Kit's personality. Looking forward to reading the next one.

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I loved this book! There were quite a few story lines at first but they were all so interesting. It was hard for me to put it down. Many memories flooded back as the setting was Christmas and Gemma and Kincaid were visiting his family at his boyhood home. Other story lines involved how difficult it is to be a teenager and also that of families who struggle to make ends meet. Excellent book...

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