No Mark Upon Her

Author: Deborah Crombie
Goodreads Rating: 4.10
Pages: 369
Format: Finished copy for a blog  tour

New York Times bestselling author Deborah Crombie makes her mark with this absorbing, finely hued tale of suspense--a deeply atmospheric and twisting mystery full of deadly secrets, salacious lies, and unexpected betrayals involving the mysterious drowning of a Met detective--an accomplished rower--on the Thames.

When a K9 search-and-rescue team discovers a woman's body tangled up with debris in the river, Scotland Yard superintendent Duncan Kincaid finds himself heading an investigation fraught with complications. The victim, Rebecca Meredith, was a talented but difficult woman with many admirers--and just as many enemies. An Olympic contender on the verge of a controversial comeback, she was also a high-ranking detective with the Met--a fact that raises a host of political and ethical issues in an already sensitive case.

To further complicate the situation, a separate investigation, led by Detective Inspector Gemma James, Kincaid's wife, soon reveals a disturbing--and possibly related--series of crimes, widening the field of suspects. But when someone tries to kill the search-and-rescue team member who found Rebecca's body, the case becomes even more complex and dangerous, involving powerful interests with tentacles that reach deep into the heart of the Met itself.

Surrounded by enemies with friendly faces, pressured to find answers quickly while protecting the Yard at all costs, his career and reputation on the line, Kincaid must race to catch the killer before more innocent lives are lost--including his own.

My blog didn’t start off as a YA mostly blog, I used to do a lot of adult books, but my life has become consumed with teen angst and drama. I do however enjoy a good Adult book once in a while, and this book filled that void mostly. It was a solid murder mystery with a lot of twists and turns that I couldn’t have seen coming.

I really struggled with this book because of the British slang. There were points where I really didn’t understand the conversation that was happening. I think the reason that this was most annoying was because I get that its originally published in England, but there was no reason that the slang had to be so heavy. I guess I can forget it to come extent. I tried really hard to read the book thoroughly, but the first 150 pages were a little rough for reasons other than the slang. This book is #14 in a series about these two cops. That means that there is a lot of backstory that the author is trying to clue you in on, alright fine, I get that too, but there were some scenes that didn’t seem to further the plot or the character development that I started skimming until something prudent to the case was mentioned or we learned something meaningful about a character.

I really enjoyed the murder mystery and the different clues that we were left throughout the book. I have to say that I was really surprised when they announced who the killer was. That came totally out of left field. I really liked thought that it wasn’t super predictable, and that they slowly progressed to finding out who it was instead of having it in your face the whole time. It made me feel better when they did catch the person responsible because it didn’t feel like they were bumbling around without a clue.

I also liked the personal back story that we had for Duncan and Gemma. Like I said, this is book 14, so there is a lot that we don’t get to see and explore, but the back story that we were provided with as a reader made me feel that it wasn’t a middle of the series book. Their scenes were actually the ones that I looked forward to the most other than the murder mystery because they were interesting. The other parts were less so, but I wanted to know about them and the Murder mystery.

I wasn’t thrilled with the naming of the characters. The naming wasn’t so bad but at times I felt like she was intentionally trying to confuse us by calling Duncan Kincaid, Kincaid when he was talking to another character named Kieran, and she would refer to him as Duncan when he was talking to another person named Doug. Alliteration is fun until it confuses your reader. Which it did at points because I never knew who was talking.

In the end, this book was a really interesting mystery. I enjoyed the little blurbs at the top of each paragraph that related to some information during the book and I also liked the info about Rowing that I had no idea about. I would probably recommend starting the series from the beginning, there was a lot that I felt that I was missing between characters like Doug and Melody and the background about Gemma and Duncan’s daughter, Charlotte.

The Courts Decision: