The Winds of Change

Richard Jury #19

by Martha Grimes

Richard Jury embarks on the darkest investigation of his career when the dead body of a young London girl leads to the cold case of a missing girl in Launceston-an unsolved mystery that has haunted Police Officer Brian Macalvie for years.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, British Literature, Audiobook, Mystery Thriller, Murder Mystery

384 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Martha Grimes is an American author of detective fiction.

She was born May 2 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to D.W., a city solicitor, and to June, who owned the Mountain Lake Hotel in Western Maryland where Martha and her brother spent much of their childhood. Grimes earned her B.A. and M.A. at the University of Maryland. She has taught at the University of Iowa, Frostburg State University, and Montgomery College.

Grimes is best known for her series of novels featuring Richard Jury, an inspector with Scotland Yard, and his friend Melrose Plant, a British aristocrat who has given up his titles. Each of the Jury mysteries is named after a pub. Her page-turning, character-driven tales fall into the mystery subdivision of "cozies." In 1983, Grimes received the Nero Wolfe Award for best mystery of the year for The Anodyne Necklace.

The background to Hotel Paradise is drawn on the experiences she enjoyed spending summers at her mother's hotel in Mountain Lake Park, Maryland. One of the characters, Mr Britain, is drawn on Britten Leo Martin, Sr, who then ran Marti's Store which he owned with his father and brother. Martin's Store is accessible by a short walkway from Mountain Lake, the site of the former Hotel, which was torn down in 1967.

She splits her time between homes in Washington, D.C., and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Reviews

[Heidi Babcock]

I love Martha Grimes and Richard Jury but have a secret crush on Melrose Plant. What a name! I've read them all and am looking forward to starting over again. I find myself laughing out loud when I'm reading these books.

[Lisa Lieberman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used to be crazy about Martha Grimes. The pub names as titles, the quirky characters, the delightful friendship between Richard Jury and Melrose Plant. The preternatural little girls. The humor. Above all, the humor.

I don't know why I drifted away. Life, I suppose. But I picked this one up at my local library's annual book sale for $1.50 and was reminded of everything I loved about the series. Good to know there are six more Jury mysteries waiting.

[Kathy Davie · Rating 5 out of 5]

They are such a great combination-Richard Jury and Melrose Plant. Between Plant's background sleuthing using his noble background and Jury's stubbornness, evil ends in a backdrop of sorrow. I do love Martha Grimes' Richard Jury series.

[Craig Monson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although it’s too early to tell after reading only my second Richard Jury mystery, my impression is that Martha Grimes seems to have hit upon a successful, reader-pleasing formula (which is not to say the results are formulaic). The tales of crime seem to offer a framework onto which to pin her characters, many of whom turn up in the pages of one book after another, sometimes in similar situations, and all carefully and, one might say, affectionately described. I look forward to encountering these familiar faces as much as I do to discovering the latest story in which they’re deeply entangled (or not). Chief Inspector Jury sensitively engages, not only with a fresh crowd of witnesses and suspects, but, happily, with the same dishy girl from the flat upstairs and the same dotty, old dear in the basement, another, similarly dishy girl in the squad room at work and his quirky, younger professional sidekick, even recurrent animals (the dog in the flat, the cat in the squad room, the goat in the paddock, supplemented by other animals that skip, leap, and bound about [and occasionally speak] in individual books). As Jury hurries about London and the countryside on British Rail, he seems also inevitably to end up sitting opposite a child, who offers further opportunity to indulge his subtly developed interpersonal skills (despite protests of being out of his element among the very young). Other characters have their own, rather particular parts to play. Will the wealthy, landed gent Montrose always be enlisted to go under an extremely weak cover? Last time it was as a horse-buying, faux member of the British racing set, this time as a specialist in extremely arcane gardening techniques—Martha Grimes’ equivalent of Mike Rowe on “Dirty Jobs.” (What will be next? Road kill taxidermist?) I think I’ve also figured out (at least for now) that scenes involving Montrose’s stable of lovable verrry Brrrrritish eccentrics who populate the local pub in Piddlesworth-under-Twee (or wherever) are meant to serve up set pieces, offering relief from the plotted foreground (no matter if their relationship to the story is tangential): Grimes’ upper-crust equivalents of Shakespeare’s Bottom the weaver and other “rude mechanicals” (to which, incidentally, the succession of “hermits” who occupy the folly on Montrose’s estate offer a more obvious comedic equivalent).
The plot this time is in no way comfortable: a stable of 6- to 12-year-old girls (one shot in the back before page 1), imprisoned in a house catering to pedophiles from England’s top one percent. There’s also a murdered grown-up and an abducted pre-schooler, who (fortunately) eclipse the pedophilia subplot, with which they are thoroughly entangled . But it’s Jury, Wiggins, Mrs Wasserman, Carol-anne, Stone (woof), the cat Cyril who keep the pages turning.

[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one was perfect. The mystery is a bit darker than I like - crimes against children - specifically girls...and I was a bit worried that it would be graphic or full of broken young - very young girls but it turned out ok.

Again, this is taking place a few months after Jury was shot so we are moving from case to case in a pretty tight time frame in these latest books. One thing i began to appreciate in this one is Jury's relationships with the Long Pid group. For the most part this is a group of very well to do people who do the silliest things and have the funniest conversations and they all just think the world of Jury. He is one of them - they are his friends. And it is fun and funny to see him get caught up in some of their silliness.

As for the mystery - well Macalvie is involved because part of the story is about a missing child...is she dead, in hiding, abducted by her father - who controls a pedophile ring-that is the big fear? And unlike some of her other Jury books this mystery has an ending -but Jury is on suspension for his actions. Also, this book ends with Jury in a bar listening to a story that continues in the next book - so again these latest books are all happening right after each other.

This one was perfect

[Esdaile · Rating 1 out of 5]

“The Winds of Change” by an American crime writer called Martha Grimes (the crime takes place in England but the investigating officers or should I say cops, if not themselves American speak in an American way) has nothing to do with The Scorpions song, unless Ms Grimes took the title from the song, which would not surprise me, for I ask myself what is not plagiarised in this unpleasant, poorly written so-called mystery. It is the tale of child abduction, child prostitution and murder, recounted with neither insight nor intelligence, nor for that matter plausibility. I do not know what I can say in favour of this carelessly written, one dimensional and grim airport book. It is my first and definitely last book by yet another jumper on the new generation whodunnit-money milker-best seller-script for TV serial-and then more money- “mystery thriller”. The last book which I had read in this cliché ridden tradition was by P.D..James called The Murder Room. For all the obvious faults and chlichés, P.D. James does display intelligence in her descriptions of scenarios and motivations. That is more than can be said for Martha Grimes, whose name in the tradition of many “mystery thrillers” suggests a salient characteristic of the personality. I was not greatly impressed by PD James but she dazzles in talent compared with Martha Grimes' tabloid style t.v. crime script (it grates to call this entertainment a novel). Martha Grimes shares all the weaknesses of P.D. James but has none of the latter's strengths. We have the same implausible hardened but virtuous police inspectors, so badly drawn as characters and so implausible that they are interchangeable and unmemorable, confronted with uncompromising and crudely drawn evil so psychologically narrow as to be little more than cardboard cutout devils, said inspector cum heros struggling with some personal problems while being very sensitive, loveable and literary /philosophical when they are off duty. P.D: James' hero (Dagleesh or a similar name) is a poet. Martha Grimes goes one better and calls her hero Jury (the presumably symbolically chosen name for her Tweedledum Officer. He represents the condemnation of evil by the people-get it? ) and he is a philospher if you please. I suppose that it is to make the hard jawed plod more appealing to student readers and therefore boost sales by a hundred thousand or so. The book is fine-tuned to increase sales and all quality is sacrificed to that, assuming that is that the writer might be able otherwise to write a story of quality, which is frankly questionable. In case anyone thinks I am negative because of the subject matter, I shall mention Michael Connelly. Michael Connelly wrote a thriller (the name escapes me) with the same theme, but Connell's story was plausible, sounded authentic, with a fine eye for psychological plasuibility and atmosphere, and showed a fine eye for detail of place and character, all missing in Martha Grimes' account.
In both the Martha Grimes and P.D. James murder mysteries which I read, the guilty party was easy to spot, although since the murderer was more or less a caricature in the case of PD James and entirely a caricature in Martha Grimes, there was little interest in the murderer's being unmasked (in marked contrast to Agatha Christie, who really did understand the vagaries of human nature). In the case of Martha Grimes, the guilty party is all but revealed from the beginning, so it is questionable as to whether there can be a spoiler to a whodunnit so pat and obvious that it is not really a whodunit at all. The unpleasant subject of the novel is laced with Daily Mail crusading tabloid spirit and voyeurism. In an especially unpleasant denouement, Martha Grimes sets the reader up to agree with police officers violating liberal impediments to police abuse of power. Jury enters a house without a search warrant and roughs up the person inside it which is all fine because the writer has made the victim so evil as to warrant every conceivable waiving of liberal protection and niceties. In sum: she sets up her villains as sufficiently appalling to get the reader nodding approvingly while reading about the methods of arrest employed by a police state.
As if aware that she needs to lighten the dreary atmosphere she depicts, Martha Grimes makes an attempt at being funny: a friend of the investigating officer (I cannot remember if he is himself an officer or not and frankly can't even be bothered to check) who is called Plant (Ha! Ha!) in one of too many implausible actions poses as a gardener in order to more closely observe the goings on at the house and gardens of a missing girl. The humorous potential lies in the fact that Plant knows nothing about gardening and has chosen an exotic aspect of gardening in the hope that nobody else will question his bone fides. The joke engineered by the writer is that he is constantly forced to bluff his way in conversation as an aficionado of his subject about which he knows nothing. This is the sort of setting which one could expect in a P.G. Wodehouse tale; out of which P.G. Wodehouse would have created hilarious scenes. Alas, Martha Grimes is no more a PG Wodehouse than she is an Agatha Christie, and the humour falls resoundingly flat. It depresses me to know that junk writing such as this, as unhealthy for the brain as junk food for the body, is gobbled up by millions to ensure this writer's enjoys considerable creature comforts, which she undoubtedly does because her books sell well.
The attempt at humour however is the one aspect of The Winds of Change which seems to be original, for the book borrows widely from previous and better writers, and much of it is plagiarism: a highly implausible (the book abounds in implausibilities) conversation with a precocious schoolgirl recalls the talks with the disturbingly prococious Josephine in Agatha Christie's Crooked House. The discovery of a body which the owners of the property cannot identify, recalls Agatha Christie's incomparably better book 4:50 from Paddington and more recently P.D. James' (also better) The Murder Room.

I love books and it normally pains me to throw any away. I have over 4000 books which I shelter from the hawk eyes of my wife, who is keen to swoop and destroy. A book has to be very very bad for me to willingly take it out to the wheely bin of my own free will. It means I even consider the book too bad to lend or try to sell. The last novels I condemned were two numbingly senseless tales by someone called Tim Parks. Martha Grimes now follows Tim Parks and even more deservedly. My wife will be pleased.

[Joe Gabbard · Rating 1 out of 5]

I finished this book only to write an informed review of how bad it was. The first and last 5 chapters hold the entire plot and everything in between is just strangely interrogative conversations with 9 year olds and soil and turf trivia. The plot and concept would be entertaining if it weren’t filled with mind numbing nonsensical dialogue that felt like a bad 90’s sitcom.

[Nancy Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful! As usual in Martha Grimes' novels, the characters, including the non-human ones, are wonderful. The fact that I figured out what happened to the missing child fairly early did not diminish my enjoyment of the book. I listened to the audiobook edition, these are the greatest stories to listen to on long trips!

[Dorothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Child abduction. Human trafficking. Pedophilia. Child murder. Martha Grimes' series of so-called "cozy" mysteries has certainly taken a turn to the dark side with the last two or three entries that I've read. None has been darker than this one, number 19, The Winds of Change.

It starts with the inexplicable murder of a tiny girl. Found cast aside like garbage on a London street, she's five or six years old and nameless. No one immediately comes forward to claim her. She has been shot in the back. Who would want to murder a small child?

Superintendent Richard Jury begins his investigation and soon learns that there is a pedophilia ring operating in the area. A number of small girls are kept prisoner in a house to serve the sick desires of some of the local upstanding businessmen, but police have been unable to gather the evidence needed for probable cause to raid the house and break up the ring. (This began to remind me of one of Anne Perry's Victorian mysteries revolving around the victimization of women and children.)

In the middle of his investigation, Jury is called by his friend, Commander Brian Macalvie, to come and help him with another mystery. It's the murder of a young woman, killed on the grounds of a country estate. She, too, is anonymous, as her body was found with no identification.

It soon emerges that the man who owns the estate where she was killed has been dogged by tragedy. His stepdaughter, whom he adored, had apparently been kidnapped three years before, although no ransom demand was ever received. Moreover, several months after that happened, the child's mother, his wife, died from a heart condition. And who do you think is the child's father? Well, it is none other than the chief pedophile of that odious ring in London. Surely, all of this must be connected.

Once again, Jury deploys his friend Melrose Plant as an undercover agent on the county estate. This time he poses as a "turf specialist" to assist in the renovation of the gardens of the estate. And once again, Melrose encounters an odd and charming child, a little girl, and her equally odd and charming dog, both of whom live on the estate. Some things never change in a Grimes mystery. Although some readers might find this tiresome after a while, I actually enjoy these quirky child and animal characters of hers. They bring a touch of lightness and reality to her plots.

And this plot certainly needed a little lightness. There's not much time spent drinking and trading quips with the Long Piddleton crew at the old Jack and Hammer in this one, and there's precious little Cyril the Cat, nemesis of Jury's boss, Chief Superintendent Racer, and therefore loved by Jury and Racer's secretary, Fiona. No, it definitely leans toward the dark side. But it was an intriguing read, even though the plot had a few holes and the solution to the central mystery actually became pretty evident by about two-thirds of the way through. It proved to be another satisfying chapter in the Richard Jury saga.

[Jan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Appears there are many Richard Jury Novels. Not sure if I am going to order more, though I liked the character. Story, child is found shot in the back on a London street, policeman Richard Jury is sent to investigate. One of the houses in the street has been under observation due to the belief children are inside and are being used in a pediphfile ring. But, no one is doing a darn thing about it, because everyone is scared of incrimination. One policeman tried, and got smashed down. Seems like the police missed the bit about getting child services involved. Hello!!!!

Then a body is found in a garden in South England, and and Jury is sent to investigate this murder. Also, it is thought, there might possibly be a link to the child found dead in the street. Why? Well a body has been found in the garden of a home, where a few years before, a child from this household had been abducted. The link, the Childs birth father is expected to be the ring leader of the Pediphfile ring, though no one can proved it. The home is owned by the abducted child's step father, who is very wealthy and his wife had died a sudden death. He also appears to be having the grounds re-done by gardeners, why, because his dead wife wanted it, and this step-father, of the abducted child has absolutely no idea who the dead women is in his garden. He also states, he has no idea who abducted his step-daughter or if she is still alive.

So silly, as when one finds out who the person is, and everyone said they had no idea, it is quite ridiculouse to think that two men, who slept with her could not identify her! Also, it was very obvious to me from the git go, who the missing child was, and where she was.

Nope, not a fan of this book. On to the next one.

[Lizzytish · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was darker then usual. A child is murdered. Pedophillia. Nothing graphic, at least. Not as much Plant as I’d like. I find Grimes’ writing so satisfying in the way she describes situations and thoughts, the humor, and the development of characters. I love how she ends with the gang at the pub doing or saying crazy things. The very ending was an excellent lead into the next book. Only the dog came back.

[Sheila Myers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another interesting book in the Richard Jury series. I did get a little lost in a couple of places because I've only read one of the other books, but there was enough information given for me to eventually fill in the gaps. I look forward to reading other books in this series.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

from the library

The Winds of Change (Richard Jury, #19)
by Martha Grimes
hardcover and audio edition of 10cd's

MG writes a vivid and graphic text on child sexual abuse. The RJ character expresses all the politically correct emotions: disgust, fury, willingness to lose his job to rescue the little girls. Did you notice that the system he works within puts him at risk of losing his job? This is a sort of sideways view of the police as well as about the crooked police which are necessary to keep this business in business. For my part I think this book might as well be a manual for running such a business. There is no mention that the profits of this book are given to children who are actually the victims of these businesses. So as far as I am concerned you and I are enabling the author and publisher to profit off the lives of these children. I didn't choose this book to find such a miserable story. But I am properly trained and very experienced at talking to people about childhood sexual experiences, so I figured if I am feeling conscripted into this experience the least I can do is tell the truth about this book. It's one thing to say that the story focuses on the owner of a house which might be the "hub of a pedophilia ring" and another to devote large sections of the book to a description of the interior of this house and of the lives of the captive children.

[Spuddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Number umpteen in Scotland Yard's Chief Superintendent Richard Jury series. Jury once again teams up with Melrose Plant--this time posing as a "turf specialist" at the estate of a wealthy man where an unknown woman was found murdered. Cmdr. Brian Macalvie has called Jury in and he goes willingly, believing there may be a connection between the murdered woman and the murder of a young girl in London.

There is a question of a pedophile ring, of cases of mistaken identity, and as always, deceit and treachery. Jury is still recovering physically from the gunshot wound he suffered a few months ago, but his brain is as active as always, making connections that others don't see.

I love the characters in this series--after reading so many of them, they have become dear friends, although I still find it a bit ludicrous that Jury has Melrose posing as all these weird 'specialists' in fields he knows nothing about. This mystery was actually quite intriguing and I was sucked into the story from the beginning. This was one of the better recent entries I've read--some have been rather disappointing but this was back on track, if a bit predictable.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Serendipity. Synchronicity. I recently read the biography of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higgenson, and now both turn up in a murder mystery. Whoever thinks mysteries are low rent is totally wrong. Grimes is always good and this is one of her best. Jury is involved in solving the killing of a five-year old girl who was also raped. Running in tandem with this death is the death of Jury's cousin, the last of his family with whom he can share memories of his youth. The theme of death is bleak, especially because Grimes does children so well. Jury and Melrose Plant work side by side to track down the murder of a woman who is also tied to the disappearance of another child, a child who happens to be the daughter of the man who supports the use of young girls as sexual toys. All the strands come together satisfactorily though a few frayed edges are left for the mind to tinker with.

[Sandra Strange · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series contains really good British mysteries, and features a host of repeating characters, Jury, a Scotland Yard chief inspector (so goes all over England and other places when asked), along with his rich aristocratic friend Melrose Plant, with the people (many eccentric, many real characters) surrounding both--Plant in his Northamptonshire estate and the small towns surrounding him, and Jury at his London apartment and with all the helpers and local police officials that surround him, wherever he's busy with various crimes. The books are each named for a pub with and intriguing name, usually appropriate to the main mystery. Well plotted. This one circles around really yucky stuff: pedophilia. This one ends right, Yay!, with Jury risking his career for something really heroic. Grimes often adds children who are engaging, and this one features more than one.

[Elizabeth Frey-Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh. This was written in 2004... and yet the description of the child with Down Syndrome is just horrid. And I'm perplexed as to why an author would work really hard to incorporate a scene involving "Where the Wild Things Are", and then call the main character of that children's book "Timmy" instead of Max.

Grimes seems to hate women and children more and more, the longer she wrote this series. Jury and Plant are straight-up jackasses to just about everyone around them. And the the peripheral characters? Good Lord. One recurring detective jokes about smacking a 7 year old child witness upside the head, during a child murder, abduction and pedophilia investigation.

Seriously. At this point, I am hate-reading the series, trying to figure out why it continues to be sort of popular, among the cozy mystery folks.

[Kathie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read all of the Richard Jury series and have enjoyed them. However, the last few, including this one, seem to be lagging. I am tiring of the odd, precocious children that Grimes seems to feel impelled to include in every book. Although the book is supposedly set in contemporary times (computers, cell phones, etc.), I get a very strong sense that Grimes is stuck in the past, and the book has the feel of the 30s or 40s instead. Overall, I did enjoy the book, because I like the main characters so well, but my enthusiasm for the series is fading.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good read although a bit flat at the end. The best character created by Martha Grimes has to be Melrose Plant. I want to sit with him and the rest of his crew just one evening in the local pub!

I guess almost thirteen years is long enough that I didn't remember I had already read this book -- still enjoyed it, and I still love Melrose Plant.

[Mariann Ryckman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't know this was a series when i checked it out. In my opionion, there are too much miscellaneous and endless conversations that have nothing to do with the plot. I probably won't pursue this series. But the audio version kept my mind occupied while driving in the early morning.

[Diane Large · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a rather dark mystery. I love Melrose Plant. Of all things he is a “turf specialist” for Jury in this story. I did figure out the twist in the ending before hand. Even though it wasn’t a pleasant subject, it was a good mystery.

[Leslie Ferrari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another good one. It is important with these later books to read them in order as they tend to flow from one to the next.

[Bodosika Bodosika · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not too interesting...2star

[Curt Bobbitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

The creepy pedophilia plot arc of this novel starts with a young girl's body found in the street. The rest of it takes place in Cornwall, so brooding Brian Macalvie is again in the cast of significant characters. The narrative present of this one is March 1996 (the specific year made clear in The Grave Maurice, which takes place in January 1996). Jury compares the parallel investigations to a Restoration comedy because of the disguised identities, nothing new to this series. Literary references, however, include only one of them (She Stoops to Conquer, which is not technically Restoration). Grimes also alludes to novels by Henry James, Emily Bronte, and J. D. Salinger; poems by Emily Dickinson; and two children's books by Maurice Sendak. Jury has moments of his lingering (or growing) melancholic downturn, yet he still jokes around with the Jack and Hammer gang. At least in this novel he does not stalk or sleep with any doomed or villainous women.

[Annabelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty good Grimes book, with Richard Jury and Melrose Plant being sardonically dapper around the countryside of Britain. I just wonder why they are asexual. They flirt with girls and Jury lusts after his house mate Carole-anne. There’s a murdered woman no one recognizes on the estate of a man who had a step daughter abducted three years earlier. Her biological father is involved in a pedophilia ring which is revealed when a little girl is shot in the streets of London, and on it goes. It is funny at times, with Melrose’s horse names Aggrieved and his goat named Aghast, and his bluffing his way in pretending to be a turf specialist to hang out at the estate. There are some nice plot twists at the end, and Jury gets to be macho to save the little girls. Nice and mellow.

[Kyrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about children disappearing, and pedophiles. For the disturbing subject, it's good because this particular group of children is freed. I can only hope in a future book that the ringleader is brought to justice.
Honest to goodness, if I could figure out who Lulu was in practically the first description of her, why couldn't Macalvie? Jury? Plant?

[Kirsten Schlewitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because it wasn't enough that Grimes delved into statutory rape in her last Jury novel, she had to dip her toe in the pedophile pool for this one. At least there was enough intrigue in this one to make it worth putting up with the unimaginative choices for revenge and murder.

[Becky]

Characters Richard Jury, Scotland Yard, and Melrose Plant, Lord, always come up with devious, sometimes comical schemes to catch the killers.

[Weatherwax · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too dark for me.

2⭐️ for solid writing though.

[Jaksen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is by far one of the best books in the series.

Richard Jury is asked to look into the case of a murdered woman, found on a private estate, the owner of which has recently suffered other tragedies. These include the death of his wife (natural causes) and the abduction of his young stepdaughter. There are a lot of extenuating circumstances, of course. The man's wife was formerly married to a mobster-type who wanted custody of his daughter. As well, said 'mobster-type' might be connected to another murder Jury was investigating, that of a young girl shot in the back, and which might be connected to a possible pedophile ring.

It's a mashup. Death and murder. A sickening crime ring that, for the moment, justice can't touch due to lack of evidence, warrant issues, etc. Martha Grimes just piles it all on in this one. I often view her books as neat and straightforward: there's a death; the police do this; the police do that; the police are briefly stymied due to bureaucracy and correct procedure, etc., or unwilling witnesses; however, eventually logic and normalcy break through and Jury gets his man, or men, or woman, or whomsoever.

Not here. Jury is stymied at every avenue and must rely (once more!) on his old, titled, wealthy and ever-so-accommodating pal, Melrose Plant! To find out what might be going on at the estate where the murdered woman was found, (on a bench in a massive, ornate garden undergoing renovation), he sets up Melrose as an expert in 'turf and enameled mead,' whatever the heck that is. Yes, Melrose hasn't any idea either, and his attempts at fooling the owner and the local landscapers and gardeners lends some relief to the heavy, weighty topic at the center of the book. There's also a smart and charming little girl - isn't there always? - who seems to know just a bit too much for her own good.

The entire book was excellent, and though I felt it dragged down a bit in the middle - which is where Melrose shows his true form at improvisation - overall, the book was a satisfying, interesting read. There were also a few twists and sudden turns that I should have seen, but of course, did not.

Four stars.