All Shall Be Well

By: Deborah Crombie

Narrated by: Michael Deehy

Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's Summary

Perhaps it is a blessing when Jasmine Dent dies in her sleep. At last an end has come to the suffering of a body horribly ravaged by disease. It may well have been suicide; she had certainly expressed her willingness to speed the inevitable. But small inconsistencies lead her neighbor, Superintendent Duncan Kincaid, to a startling conclusion: Dent was murdered. But if not for mercy, why would someone destroy a life already doomed? As Kincaid and his appealing assistant Sergeant Gemma James sift through the dead woman's strange history, a troubling puzzle emerges: a bizarre amalgam of charity and crime--and of the blinding passions that can drive the human animal to perform cruel and inhuman acts.

©1994 Deborah Darden Crombie (P)2010 BBC Audio

UNIQUE MYSTERY

I liked this book. There is a nice balance of intriguing plot and character development. The story moves along at a steady pace that seemed just right to me. There is a variety of characters, each distinctive. From the beginning of the book, a key question is whether there actually was a murder.

The tone of this book seems a little more serious than many "cozy" mysteries (I do enjoy "cozies"). The characters are a little more intricate, the tone a bit more somber. For me that made the book more interesting and involving, but not at all depressing. There are no graphic descriptions of sex or violence, and no excessive use of profanity.

This is the second Deborah Crombie book that I've read and I liked this one even more than the first. I look forward to reading more books in this series.

Not my Favorite in this Series

What did you like best about All Shall Be Well? What did you like least?

The narrator does a good job, and the book is well written, with good descriptions of people and places, but quite frankly I really disliked the story. There were parts that made me uncomfortable, and I didn't like the way it seemed that Kincaid was always noticing women's breasts, etc. It was thrown in often enough for it to be distracting, and he came off looking a little like a creep. I liked the first book in this series, and think I will try the next, but I should've listened to the reviews that said this title wasn't a winner.

What does Michael Deehy bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He does a good job differentiating between the characters.

Was All Shall Be Well worth the listening time?

Honestly--no.

Any additional comments?

If you're a bit sensitive to racy material, this book will probably make you uncomfortable. It's not graphic, exactly, but it had a certain "ick" factor for me. I think it could have been handled in a better way than it was. Just my opinion, many would probably disagree but I can be a little squeamish.

classic who-dun-it

no nasty blood and gore or CSI in this novel. It's reminiscent of Agatha Christie. Suspicious death in an English town with a closed cast of characters, and a detective who solves the mystery with his little grey cells after interviewing all the suspects. The author is good at creating a lot of red herrings to keep the reader guessing til the end. An easy and enjoyable read.

Fully realized characters

There was nothing lascivious in any comment about breasts in this book. The one, and only, observation regarding a woman's breasts was non-sexual and sympathetic.
The main characters continue to develop and the figures around the central mystery are given fully realized characteristics.

I read, and loved, this series years ago and am delighted to find that they not only hold up to, but exceed, my recollection.

A good plot and mystery is enhanced by carefully realized character development.
I enjoy following the series in order and appreciate Michael Deehy's narration. Jenny Serlin is much harder to listen to so will be skipping over those.

Life is complicated and so is death

I started this book 3 times before I got into it enough to keep listening till the end. Once I got past the first few chapters I was actually hooked. The characters are enjoyable and became very real to me. The exploration into the backgrounds of all the participants was revealing. No one is as simple as they look on the surface and some of the apparently strong people have hidden weaknesses and the apparently weak have hidden strength. Although it deals with a murder the book conveys a sense of hope in the end.

I enjoyed the Audible version more than I did the hard copy

I have a teetering, virtual stack of TBR books, but I devote time to revisit Deborah Crombie’s Kincaid & James detective series—by listening to the Audible version.

As an early Crombie, the mystery-police procedural storyline of “All Shall Be Well” is good but needs more complexity. In this book, Crombie’s strength is the focus on her characters—well-developed but still evolving—who drive the story.

I found this book more enjoyable when read by narrator Michael Deehy, who does a brilliant job with the characters’ voices. Bravo, Mr. Deehy.

Slow

This is the first that I have listened to in this series and I can't imagine choosing another. I enjoyed the writing, I enjoyed Kincaid (the main character), I really enjoyed the female police officer, in fact, I enjoyed all the characters, a lot! The brother, Jasmine, Margaret, the characters were really well developed. But nothing much happened. Even in the couple of chances for dramatic moments, like when they had to testify in court, or at the end when they figured out who did it, those moments were very underwhelming.
I have always really enjoyed non-American authors (Tana French, Herman Koch, Stieg Larsson, none British I know) and I love police dramas, but this was just too slow for me.

Typical British police procedural mystery.Harumph!

This is my first in the Kincaid/James series, homicide detectives from Scotland Yard. I liked the writing, and the narration by Michael Deehy (aka Gerard Doyle) is exceptionally good, both male and female. While I enjoyed the book, I found it slow and tedious at times. Further, the conclusion, while pulling together various characters and unresolved questions, also draws a rabbit out of the hat. I would read another only if both the narrator and the story were highly rated by her fans. BTW, this book is the second in the series which has reached 15 to date.

Suicide?

This is the second of this series I've read and find them very good indeed

Down a Notch from Book One . . . Still Good

When Superintendent Duncan Kincaid's terminally ill neighbor, Jasmine Dent, turns up dead, at first it seems to be suicide . . . but something just doesn't sit right . . . with a lot of people. Most of all her best friend, who swears that Jasmine had come to the decision to enjoy the last days or weeks of her life. Duncan and his assistant, Sergeant Gemma James look into Jasmine's life and relationships and learn some interesting things. What clouds the story and makes it more dingy for me is Superintendent Kincaid's daydreams of Jasmine on a personal level . . . it makes the tale almost sleazy . . . a far departure from the first book in the series . . . when it seemed as though a sweetness and closeness was developing between Duncan and Gemma . . . this second installment is all over the place . . . perhaps that's what some readers expect or want in a man . . . not me . . . I am hoping the next in the series is more about the mystery and less about the sex . . . the wrap up at the end was a good one, although a bit far fetched . . .