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Necessary as Blood (Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James Novels, 13) Hardcover – Deckle Edge, October 6, 2009

by Deborah Crombie (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,943 ratings
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Necessary As Blood is the latest entry in Deborah Crombie’s New York Times Notable, Edgar®, Agatha, and Macavity Awards-nominated mystery series featuring Scotland Yard detectives Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James. A Texan frequently compared to the masters of British crime fiction—including P.D. James, Martha Grimes, Barbara Vine, and fellow American Elizabeth George—Crombie dazzles once more with Necessary As Blood—arelentlessly suspenseful tale of a vanished mother, a murdered father, and a helpless, endangered child.

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  1. Book 13 of 19
    Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James
  2. Print length
    384 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    William Morrow
  5. Publication date
    October 6, 2009
  6. Dimensions
    6 x 1.21 x 9 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0061287539
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0061287534
  9. See all details
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From the Publisher

Deborah Crombie banner 1
A Killing of Innocents Cover A Bitter Feast Cover Garden of Lamentations Cover
A Killing of Innocents A Bitter Feast Garden of Lamentations
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To Dwell in Darkness Cover The Sound of Broken Glass Cover No Mark upon Her Cover
To Dwell in Darkness The Sound of Broken Glass No Mark upon Her
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Romance dominates Crombie's 13th contemporary procedural featuring Scotland Yarders Gemma James and Duncan Kincaid, who are on the verge of getting married (after 2008's Where Memories Lie). The how, where and when of their wedding proves a considerable source of stress to both, overshadowing the murder investigation of Naz Malik, a solicitor suspected in the disappearance of his wife, Sandra Gilles, an artist specializing in textile collage. Malik was found suffocated in Bethnal Green, with traces of an animal tranquilizer in his system. Meanwhile, James's mother is seriously ill, placing James in the impossible position of trying to fulfill both her familial and work responsibilities. In addition, James must fight to keep Malik's now parentless young daughter from falling into the custody of Sandra's unsavory relatives. Hopefully, Crombie will provide a better balance of police work and her characters' personal lives next time. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From the Back Cover

In this dazzling addition to Deborah Crombie's acclaimed mystery series, a disappearance, a murder, and a child 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. . . .

Necessary as Blood

Once the haunt of Jack the Ripper, London's East End is a vibrant mix of history and the avant-garde, a place where elegant Georgian town houses exist side by side with colorful street markets and the hippest clubs. But here races and cultures still clash, and the trendy galleries and glamorous nightlife of Whitechapel disguise a violent and seedy underside, where unthinkable crimes bring terror to the innocent.

On a beautiful Sunday afternoon in mid May, a young mother, Sandra Gilles, leaves her daughter with a friend at the Columbia Road Flower Market and disappears. Shortly thereafter, her husband, a Pakistani lawyer, is killed. Scotland Yard detective Gemma James happens upon the scene in time to witness the investigator making a mistake.

When Duncan and his trusted sergeant, Doug Cullen, see Gemma's name in the report, they decide to take the case. Working together again, Gemma, Duncan, Doug, and Melody Talbot must solve it before the murderer can get his hands on the real prize, Naz and Sandra's daughter.

But just as the case grows more dangerous, a personal issue threatens to throw Gemma and Duncan off the trail. In the end, it is up to them to stop a vicious killer and protect the child whose fate hangs in the balance.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ William Morrow; First Edition (October 6, 2009)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0061287539
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0061287534
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.19 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.21 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,943 ratings

About the author

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Deborah Crombie

Deborah Crombie

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Deborah Crombie grew up near Dallas, Texas, but from a child always had the inexplicable feeling that she belonged in England. After earning a Bachelor's degree in Biology from Austin College in Sherman, Texas, she made her first trip to Britain and felt she'd come home. She later lived in both Chester, England, and Edinburgh, Scotland, where she failed to make as good a use of being cold and poor as JK Rowling.

It was not until almost a decade later that, living once more in Texas and raising her small daughter, she had the idea for her first novel, a mystery set in Yorkshire. She had no credentials other than a desire to write and a severe case of homesickness for Britain. A Share in Death, published in 1993, was short-listed for both Agatha and Macavity awards for Best First Novel and was awarded the Macavity.

Crombie's fifth novel, Dreaming of the Bones, was a New York Times Notable Book in 1997, was named by the Independent Mystery Booksellers as one of the 100 Best Crime Novels of the Century, was an Edgar nominee for Best Novel, and won the Macavity award for Best Novel.

Subsequent novels have been published to critical acclaim and in a dozen languages. Crombie's 18th novel featuring Metropolitan Police detectives Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Inspector Gemma James, A BITTER FEAST will be published by Harper Collins in October, 2019.

The author still lives in Texas but spends several months out of the year in Britain, maintaining a precarious balance between the two, and occasionally confusing her cultural references.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
1,943 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Stephanie
5.0 out of 5 stars Good Read!
Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2024
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A fun mystery with Gemma and Duncan. The warmth and wit of their stories always makes reading enjoyable. Ms Crombie is a terrific story teller and keeps the tension and mystery right up to the end. A book to enjoy.
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David A. Freas
4.0 out of 5 stars Every time I start reading one of Deborah Crombie’s Kincaid & James novels, I promise myself I’m going to take it slow and savor
Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2014
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Every time I end up reading faster and faster and longer and longer to find out what happened – not just who the guilty party is but what’s going on in the lives of Kincaid and James and the people around them.

Every book in this series is multi-layered with several plots running through each one and they overlap, interweave, and bounce off each other until somehow Crombie merges them into a whole with each plot playing a part in the others. This entry is no exception.

My only gripe about this book is when the main story started, it seemed as if it was taking place within days or weeks of the prolog. It wasn’t until several pages later that it became clear that the prolog occurred months earlier.

One of my comments on an earlier novel in the series suggested Crombie wrap up some ongoing story lines that I thought had stretched too long. Evidently, she heard me, for both are tied up in this entry.

I have the next two books in the series in my ‘to read’ pile and the urge to pick the next one up and dive into it is so strong, it’s almost overwhelming. That desire to read more is the sign of a good series.
5 people found this helpful
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S. McGee
5.0 out of 5 stars One long-running mystery series that isn't flagging!
Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2009
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It's hard for a mystery novelist to sustain a long-running series with the same set of detectives. In some cases, I end up wondering just how many bodies some communities generate over the year; in other cases, the author himself or herself seems to be wearying of their task, and end up delivering predictable and ho-hum books. A few successfully develop new characters (Natasha Cooper has already done this once, the writing team of Charles Todd seems to be trying to do the same.)

Then there's Deborah Crombie, whose 13th offering in the series of police procedurals featuring Duncan Kincaid and his fiancee and fellow police officer Gemma James is one of her best yet. There are no fictional pyrotechnics, homicidal lunatics, no piling up of corpses at every turn -- there isn't even really a vast global conspiracy theory. There are just a collection of fallible and sometimes malicious or callous individuals, whose actions or inactions have consequences for all around them.

In this particular character-driven mystery, a young mother named Sandra Gilles simply vanishes one day, leaving her toddler daughter with a family friend for what she promises will just be an hour or two. Then, months later, her husband also disappears; Charlotte, the 3-year-old daughter, can say only that her Mummy went away and her Daddy went to look for her. Gemma and Duncan share mutual friends with Naz, Charlotte's father and a Pakistani-born lawyer, and are in on the case early, even before the first dead body shows up. From then on, they work together and separately to resolve the mystery and help create the best possible future for Charlotte, who, if they don't act, may end up living with her maternal grandmother despite the presence of two drug-dealing uncles and the fact that Sandra had no contact with her family.

The plot itself is complex but adeptly handled so that it never feels so; the characters are all plausible and the settings so vivid that I remain astonished that Crombie is an American and not a Londoner. There's nothing here to stretch the reader's credulity. Best of all, Crombie manages to blend the plot with the developments in Duncan's and Gemma's real lives (they are trying to find a way to marry that will keep everyone happy, as Gemma's mother must cope with a recurrence of her cancer -- disclosed very early on in the book, so not a spoiler!). There are no simple answers to either their personal challenges or to the mystery of what happened to Sandra or Naz, but Crombie ably walks the narrow line between giving away too many clues or emerging at the last moment with an improbable solution to the crime.

Highly recommended to anyone who likes character-driven mysteries. This isn't as elegantly written as P.D. James, or as complex as Elizabeth George's books, but anyone who relishes their characters should enjoy this series. It could be read as a stand-alone book, but there are frequent references throughout to events dealt with in previous episodes of the duo's personal and professional partnership, so I'd suggest starting your reading back with  A Share in Death (Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James Novels) , Crombie's debut, still in print more than 15 years later. Fans of the author will find this is one of the best of her recent books.
15 people found this helpful
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Sharon Isch
5.0 out of 5 stars Deborah Crombie and her Gemma James-Duncan Kincaid mysteries just keep getting better and better and better!
Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2009
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Julia Walker's review of this book is spot on and I totally endorse everything she has to say. I just want to add a couple of things.

1. Because the Crombie series, like Donna Leon's equally brilliant Brunetti series, is so character driven, I strongly recommend reading the books in chronological order. Then, by the time you get to this one, the 13th in the series, your involvement with Gemma, Duncan, their families, friends, colleagues and how their personal histories have evolved will be firmly in place, greatly adding to the many pleasures you'll find here. Here's the list, in order, updated December, 2014: "A Share in Death," "All Shall Be Well," "Leave the Grave Green," "Mourn Not Your Dead," "Dreaming of the Bones," "Kissed a Sad Goodbye," "A Finer End," "And Justice There Is None," "Now May You Weep," "In a Dark House," "Water Like a Stone," "Where Memories Lie," "Necessary as Blood," "No Mark Upon Her," "The Sound of Broken Glass," "To Dwell in Darkness."

2. This second comment is a bit off topic and relates to the atmospheric chapter header quotes that Walker mentions. Several are from Dennis Severs's book about his Spitalfields house at 18 Fogate Street. During my first trip to London in 1982 I spent an evening at one of Severs's otherworldly candlelight tours of his house and it remains one of my most memorable travel experiences; "Necessary as Blood" brought it all back for me. Any fans of this book enchanted with Crombie's portraits of today's East End and thinking of including it on an upcoming London visit should check out dennissevershouse online. Severs is no longer with us, but his house and its magical time capsule tours continue on Monday evenings, advance bookings required. For present day atmosphere, I recommend the marvelous 2007 indie movie "Brick Lane."
44 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Miss R. A. Connor
5.0 out of 5 stars Another case over.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 24, 2023
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This time, it's summer, August, and a man is murdered three months after his wife had gone missing. Their daughter Charlotte is in the care of social services, and Gemma falls in love with the girl and manages to get her looked after by Betty, Wesley's mother. The cancer of Gemma's mother is not a good prognosis. Gemma doesn't want to plan a wedding, or rather, she's putting obstacles in the path to make it impossible.
The case finally comes together, and it's not a good one as the missing woman turns up deceased.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on August 14, 2018
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great book and seller
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Ed Baines
3.0 out of 5 stars Believable
Reviewed in Spain on June 9, 2018
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I enjoy this series. The protagonists are believable and likeable - altho they seem very cavalier about their family at times.
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Kerstin
5.0 out of 5 stars Sehr spannend
Reviewed in Germany on February 12, 2017
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Auch diesmal wieder eine packende, vielschichtige Story mit hohem Tempo und genau der richtigen Portion an Romantik & Gefühl - sehr zu empfehlen
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ミステリーママ
4.0 out of 5 stars 上品な犯罪小説
Reviewed in Japan on June 3, 2010
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静かな流れるような文章で、物語が展開。キンケイドとジェンマも、落ち着きを取り戻したようです。凶悪な犯罪を扱っていますが、決して過激ではなく、ゆったりとした気分で読めました。ただ、書きだし部分とのつながりがなかなか見えず、ちょっと不安に。寝る前でも読める本です。
2 people found this helpful
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