"In the tradition of Elizabeth George, Louise Penny, and P. D. James, New York Times bestselling author Deborah Crombie delivers a powerful tale of intrigue, betrayal, and lies that will plunge married London detectives Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James into the unspeakable darkness that lies at the heart of murder. Recently transferred to the London borough of Camden from Scotland Yard headquarters, Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and his new murder investigation...

In the past ... On a blisteringly hot August afternoon in Crystal Palace, once home to the tragically destroyed Great Exhibition, a solitary thirteen-year-old boy meets his next-door neighbor, a recently widowed young teacher hoping to make a new start in the tight-knit South London community. Drawn together by loneliness, the unlikely pair forms a deep connection that ends in a shattering act of betrayal. In the present ... On a cold January morning...

When her friend Erika explains that a piece of jewelry that had been stolen from her years earlier may be tied to her husband's suspicious death, Detective Inspector Gemma James investigates the piece's appearance at a prestigious London auction house.

Settling into their new home in London's bohemian Notting Hill, Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James find their idyllic world taking a sinister turn when an antique dealer's wife is found murdered outside her luxury mansion.

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...

Detective Kincaid of Scotland Yard investigates the murder of a promiscuous woman whose tea warehouse in the dockland of London was coveted by a builder. Sex crime or business crime?

The disappearance of a young mother, the murder of her Pakistani husband, and a child's life in danger lead Scotland Yard detectives Gemma James and Duncan Kincaid into London's legendary East End--a neighborhood where the rich and the poor, the ambitious and the dangerous, collide--to solve one of the most challenging and disturbing cases they've ever faced.

An abandoned Southwark warehouse burns next door to a women's shelter for victims of spousal abuse. Within it lies the charred corpse of a female body burned beyond all recognition. At the same time, workers at Guy's Hospital anxiously discuss the disappearance of a hospital administrator — a beautiful, emotionally fragile young woman who's vanished without a trace.

And in an old, dark, rambling London house, nine-year-old
Harriet's

...

Supt. Kincaid of Scotland Yard investigates the death of a lady living in his building. Ill with cancer, she asked friends to help her commit suicide, but Kincaid suspects the morphine that killed her was administered by someone intent on murder, not euthanasia.

"It is the call Scotland Yard Superintendent Duncan Kincaid never expected -- and one he certainly doesn't want. Victoria, his ex-wife, who walked out without an explanation more than a decade ago, asks him to look into the suicide of local poet, Lydia Brooke -- a case that's been officially closed for five years. The troubled young writer's death, Victoria claims, might well have been murder. No one is more surprised than Kincaid himself when he...