Cover image of "A Killing of Innocents," a new police procedural

Sasha Johnson is a trainee doctor walking home from the hospital when someone brushes past her. She stumbles, and falls dead to the ground, the victim of a knife wound. And tony Russell Square, the site of the murder, is on Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid’s patch. He rushes to the scene with his sergeant, Doug Cullen. And noting that the young woman was stabbed, he calls his wife, Inspector Gemma James, who has recently been assigned to a task force to combat the rise of knife murders in the city. Together with her colleague, Detective Sergeant Melody Talbot, Gemma joins the men in what soon proves to be a complex and lengthy investigation. Because this is no random killing or gang-related murder. Someone had singled out Sasha Johnson. This is the set-up in Deborah Crombie’s engaging new police procedural, A Killing of Innocents.

A race to head off a panic in the city

Like so many detective novels, suspects abound. The nasty head nurse on the ward where Dr. Johnson was stationed. The doctor who supervised her. An ex-boyfriend. Not to mention unknown others. And as the days go by and the investigation throttles up into high gear, involving not just the four detectives but other resources from Scotland Yard, it becomes clear that the stakes are high. Because the press, always on the prowl for a sensational angle, could trigger panic throughout London over the unexplained knifing of an attractive young woman. The pressure is on Kincaid and James to wrap up the case as speedily as possible. But then one of their suspects loses his life to a similar knife wound.

A Killing of Innocents (Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James #19) by Deborah Crombie (2023) 460 pages ★★★★☆

Photo of Russell Square in London, site of a murder in this new police procedural
Russell Square in London, where the murder of a young doctor begins the long investigation detailed in this novel. Image: Wikipedia

An engaging new entry in a time-tested detective series

A Killing of Innocents is the nineteenth novel in Deborah Crombie’s venerable series featuring Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James. As is the case in earlier books in the series, we follow the private lives of all four detectives engaged in the case. And there’s plenty of drama there. Kincaid and James are raising three children. The youngest is their biological son, the other two older, adopted when their parents died in the course of earlier investigations. And Doug Cullen and Melody Talbot have been having an affair, which has recently been strained. The effect is that all four grow on us as readers as their individual stories evolve through the years, from one book to the next.

Deborah Crombie is a writer of great skill, and in every entry in the series she demonstrates again and again her ability to manage a large cast of characters in a dramatic, fast-moving story.

About the author

Photo of Deborah Crombie, author of this new police procedural
Deborah Crombie in London in 2022. Image: Wikipedia

Deborah Crombie is the author of nineteen novels featuring Chief Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Inspector Gemma James. Remarkably, Crombie is not British. She was born in Dallas and raised nearby in Richardson, Texas. She resides in the state now but has also lived in the UK and visits there several times a year. Crombie earned a degree in biology from Austin College and writing at Tarrant County College.

I’ve been reading Deborah Crombie’s Kincaid and James detective novels for many years. The other books in the series I’ve reviewed recently include:

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