If you are looking for a classic murder mystery a la Agatha Christie then this book, and Martha Grimes for the most part are not for you. My problem with nearly all of the Martha Grimes Richard Jury mysteries is that, more often than not, the plots are thin or ill-conceived. This is not to say the novels are poorly written. It's just that for those of us coming from a lack of new Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes novels, the Martha Grimes series is not so much about mystery as about the sadness that pervades all people and all lives. Richard Jury is successful in large part because his heightened sense of the sadness and often hopelessness of the human condition attunes him to those who do murder often without venial motive, e.g., money or power. Very often the murderer acts less out of self-interest than out of protecting others. This novel uses the death of a small child on the London streets, her apparent relationship to a house of pedophilia, and the missing daughter of the owner of such a house. This leads jury to the estate of the missing daughter's step-father and recently deceased mother. In balancing these 2 stories, it quickly becomes apparent that the dead girl in London is a kind of literary loss leader to get us to Declan Scott and his tale of woe. There are the usual stopovers (comic relief) with Jury's adopted friends in Long Piddleton, at the center of which is the indominitable Melrose Plant, former Earl of Caverness. Of course, the reader also has Plant's inevitable undercover sleuthing as he poses as a landscaper specializing in "enameling". The book is full of Ms. Grimes' indelible characters and subcharacters who always manage to flush her books full of Anglophile realism and romanticism. But in the end it is the increasingly morose and cynical Jury who senses where the truth lies and pursues it in his own form of romantic justice to the usually bitter end.Read full review
Good read
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
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