From the Publisher
We can always count on her for fabulous plots...But what puts Deborah Crombie among the greats is her sure hand in raising her characters off the page.” — Louise Penny, New York Times bestselling author
“Nobody writes the modern English mystery the way Deborah Crombie does—and A Bitter Feast is the latest in a series that is gripping, enthralling, and just plain the best.” — Charles Todd, New York Times bestselling author of The Black Ascot and A Cruel Deception
“A Bitter Feast is a rich banquet for mystery lovers. Three cheers for the chef, Deborah Crombie!”
— Alan Bradley, New York Times bestselling author
"Deborah Crombie continues to push the envelope, writing books that are new, different and better and better. Richly layered, character-driven, and with an evocative sense of place, A Bitter Feast truly transcends the genre." — Rhys Bowen, New York Times bestselling author of the Royal Spyness series and the international bestseller The Tuscan Child
“It’s another stellar installment in the British mystery series that’s as much about characters as it is about crime.” — Parade
“This character-driven series just continues to get better.” — Booklist (starred review)
"To say that A Bitter Feast is a page-turner would be an understatement. Plan a full weekend of tea and scones because this one is not to be put down." — New York Journal of Books
“Crombie keeps this series on its toes with her smooth procedural techniques and engagingly eccentric characters.” — New York Times Book Review
"A Bitter Feast is a tour de force by Deborah Crombie." — CriminalElement.com
"Crombie fans and cozy aficionados will be well pleased." — Publishers Weekly
Alan Bradley
A Bitter Feast is a rich banquet for mystery lovers. Three cheers for the chef, Deborah Crombie!”
Booklist (starred review)
This character-driven series just continues to get better.
New York Journal of Books
"To say that A Bitter Feast is a page-turner would be an understatement. Plan a full weekend of tea and scones because this one is not to be put down."
New York Times Book Review
Crombie keeps this series on its toes with her smooth procedural techniques and engagingly eccentric characters.
Parade
It’s another stellar installment in the British mystery series that’s as much about characters as it is about crime.
Louise Penny
We can always count on her for fabulous plots...But what puts Deborah Crombie among the greats is her sure hand in raising her characters off the page.
New York Times bestselling author of th Rhys Bowen
"Deborah Crombie continues to push the envelope, writing books that are new, different and better and better. Richly layered, character-driven, and with an evocative sense of place, A Bitter Feast truly transcends the genre."
CriminalElement.com
"A Bitter Feast is a tour de force by Deborah Crombie."
Charles Todd
Nobody writes the modern English mystery the way Deborah Crombie does—and A Bitter Feast is the latest in a series that is gripping, enthralling, and just plain the best.
New York Times
Intricately layered.
Booklist
Crombie, a three-time Macavity Award winner, an Edgar Award nominee, and a New York Times Notable author, stages another New Scotland Yard procedural here, with the team of Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and his partner through the series (now his wife), Inspector Gemma James.
Texas Monthly
Like a finely tuned Jaguar XJS, Deborah Crombie’s Scotland Yard mysteries have provided classy, reliable thrills.
Washington Post
Crombie is very talented at putting together a richly atmospheric whodunit....As a creator, she energetically inhabits the many strange worlds she shows her readers....
Washington Post
Crombie is very talented at putting together a richly atmospheric whodunit....As a creator, she energetically inhabits the many strange worlds she shows her readers....
Booklist
Crombie, a three-time Macavity Award winner, an Edgar Award nominee, and a New York Times Notable author, stages another New Scotland Yard procedural here, with the team of Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and his partner through the series (now his wife), Inspector Gemma James.
Booklist (starred review)
This character-driven series just continues to get better.
Texas Monthly
Like a finely tuned Jaguar XJS, Deborah Crombie’s Scotland Yard mysteries have provided classy, reliable thrills.
Kirkus Reviews
2019-07-15
A fatal accident that tangles the fates of three ill-assorted people when two cars crash into each other outside a Gloucester village raises urgent questions about the living.
Hours after being ejected from the Lamb, Viv Holland's pub in Lower Slaughter, her former boss Fergus O'Reilly, who's turned up without warning and pressed her to take a new job 12 years after she quit his Michelin-rated Chelsea restaurant, is found dead after a collision outside the village. Nor is he the only victim: Nell Greene, the Lamb patron who'd picked up Fergus when she saw him walking uncertainly along the road to drive him to the hospital, has also died at the scene. And there's evidence that Fergus was fatally poisoned even before the crash. The Met's Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and his wife, DI Gemma James, are on hand to investigate because they've accepted an invitation to stay at Beck House, the home of DS Melody Talbot's wealthy parents, Sir Ivan and Lady Adelaide Talbot, for whom Viv has agreed to cater an elaborate charity luncheon. But Kincaid, who was driving the car Nell struck and survived the collision only to see Nell die as he looked on helplessly, isn't himself either physically or mentally, and the solution seems a long way off. There'll be another murder, a series of increasingly revealing flashbacks to Viv's stint at O'Reilly's 12 years ago, and endless updates on the sexual histories of the suspects with the victims, each other, and the police. Through it all, Kincaid and Gemma (Garden of Lamentations, 2017, etc.) keep stiff upper lips even when the dark revelations reach into Beck House.
Leisurely, conscientiously plotted, smoothly written, and more surprising in its details than its larger arc.
