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Where Memories Lie, Deborah Crombie, William Morrow, $24.95.

Deborah Crombie's books are stories I wait for with great anticipation - and I'm not alone. Customers have told me the same thing, one even saying that she takes as long as possible reading them to make the whole experience last longer. Her new Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James book is a wonderful addition to her body of work, containing all the typical Crombie pleasures of plot, lovely prose, and great character development. Duncan and Gemma are back in Notting Hill after Christmas with Duncan's family in the last outing (Water Like a Stone). I liked that book very much but I liked this one even better — it has a stronger story, if that's possible. The book begins with the opening of a catalogue for an art auction, and an old friend's discovery of a piece of jewelry up for sale that will affect the life of one his oldest friends, Erika Rosenthal, also a neighbor and friend of Gemma's.

Erika's father had been a jeweler in Germany just before and during WWII - Erika and her husband David having escaped Nazi Germany, her father not being as fortunate. While this is revealed about midway through the narrative it's pretty apparent from the way the story is structured that Erika is alone. In any case Erika is deeply disturbed by the re-surfacing of the brooch made by her father and contacts Gemma for help. Gemma, whose relationship with Erika had been friendly but slightly casual, is surprised by her normally implacable friend's alarm, and though her own mother is in the hospital, she agrees to look into it. Her inquiry naturally leads her to the auction house where the brooch is being sold, and it's this very inquiry that puts things in motion, things that require the necessity of Scotland Yard, in the form of Duncan, being called in.

What makes Crombie such a wonderful storyteller is her ability to use narratives from the past — a device she has used to great effect in many of her other novels — as well as several strands of plot that she is able to tie firmly together by the end of her stories. Her ability to make her characters live and breathe as well as her ability to draw you as a reader through a narrative that is complex while at the same time clearly told is one shared by all too few other writers. There's never a moment when a secondary character is forgotten, and you're never flipping back at the end of the book trying to remember who exactly the killer is. You're with her the whole time — even though she's far cleverer, and I rarely figure out whodunnit before the end. At the same time the culprit is usually an inevitable result of her carefully laid out narrative.

These books are also straight out fun to read. They are beautifully put together creations, finished all too soon. I am always pathetically eager for the next installment, this book being no exception to the rule. Long may Miss Crombie wield a pen!

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