I wonder whether Deborah Crombie planned for her main characters to fall in love and eventually marry, or if it just happened. Knowing that they do, I looked for signs in All Shall Be Well, and while Duncan Kincaid may be feeling the first hints of his attraction to Gemma James, the recently divorced and frazzled single mum doesn't quite have the energy to notice.
Crombie, as usual, shows their relationship against a murder case. Jasmine Dent was terminally ill, but Duncan, her upstairs neighbor, doesn't think her death scene appears natural. Her book and glasses aren't by the bed, and the scene just seems wrong. So was she murdered or was it a mercy killing? She'd asked Margaret Bellamy, a rather downtrodden young co-worker, to help her die but according to Margaret, Jasmine had changed her mind. Margaret's sponging boyfriend might have thought that Jasmine would leave Margaret money he'd be able to use, and of course Jasmine's home care nurse would have the means and knowledge to commit a mercy killing. Jasmine's brother, watching yet another business fail and knowing that his sister would no longer bail him out has a strong motive, and even the retired Major living downstairs from Jasmine and Duncan turns out to have reason to hold a grudge against her. Once again, Crombie manages a surprise ending that's fully supported. I've read three of her books and each ending has been a well-founded surprise. It's going to take some self control to not binge-read her backlist.
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