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Content snapshot
Flag an inaccuracy →What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.
Violence
Barely any
A historical suspicious death; the investigation involves poetry, Cambridge, and grief
Language
Barely any
Mild language
Sexual Content
Barely any
Mild content
Substance Use
Barely any
Mild content
Emotional Intensity
A lot
The specific weight of a death that people cannot move past; the Victorian poetic world and its particular pressures on women; Kincaid investigating at the request of someone he was once married to
What this book is about
Lydia Brooke, a young Cambridge poet, apparently killed herself in 1963 — a verdict that has never been fully accepted by some who knew her. Victoria McClelland, who is writing a biography of Brooke, asks her ex-husband Duncan Kincaid to look again at the case. Deborah Crombie's fifth Kincaid/James novel alternates between 1963 and the present, examining both the historical death and its effect on those still living with the unresolved question. Cambridge in both periods is rendered with specific care, and the historical mystery is as carefully constructed as the present-day investigation.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
fifth Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James novel by Deborah Crombie; Cambridge setting; dual timeline
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