Dust

November 27, 2006
Following hard upon the action of 2006's twisty The Old Wine Shades
, Grimes's equally intricate 21st Richard Jury mystery brings the Scotland Yard superintendent to a shady London hotel to investigate the murder of wealthy bachelor Billy Maples. Jury discovers connections between the murder case and the distant past through Maples's grandfather, who served as one of Britain's top code breakers during WWII. Allusions to the literary themes of Henry James lend depth. The superintendent also encounters some major romantic complications in the form of gorgeous Det. Insp. Lu Aguilar, the lead detective on the case, and Scotland Yard pathologist Phyllis Nancy. Ably abetted by his longtime amateur colleague, Melrose Plant, Jury deftly and doggedly pursues the killer. While still several notches below P.D. James's outstanding psychological whodunits, this excellent series consistently entertains—and in a way that's accessible for newcomers. 8-city author tour.

December 15, 2006
Richard Jury, the urbane Superintendent of New Scotland Yard CID, has starred in 21 mysteries and is somewhat of a holdover from an earlier era of procedurals, when crime-scene investigation took a backseat to the leisurely examination of the victim's past life. This time out one of Jury's informants, a teen who works as a waiter in a posh London hotel, summons Jury (who is in bed with his forensic-pathologist lover at the time), saying that he's found a body. The victim is a wealthy man whose past connects him to secrets from the World War II code breakers and to the novelist Henry James. Jury's friend, the effete Melrose Plant, helps out by investigating Lamb House, where James composed three of his novels, while Jury indulges in an improbable, bodice-ripper of an affair with a sexy new detective inspector. Sprawling in scope, sketchy on plotting, but still a good old-fashioned read for Jury fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)