The Knowledge

March 1, 2018

Grimes's latest "Richard Jury" mystery (after Vertigo 42) is a salute to those who drive the famous black cabs of London after passing the rigorous training course known as the Knowledge. The story begins with a glamorous couple, having emerged from the back of a black taxi, being gunned down in front of an exclusive London casino/art gallery. The shooter then gets in the cab and demands to be driven to several sites around London. He is followed by a clutch of cabbies and a gaggle of children who keep tabs on him, including the redoubtable ten-year-old Patty Haigh, who cajoles her way aboard a flight to Africa in pursuit of the killer. Before it's all resolved, readers are introduced to the erratic streets of London, astrophysics, the blue gemstone tanzanite, and the comfort of first-class travel on Emirates Airlines. VERDICT Fans of Richard Jury should enjoy this new entry. Others will find a convoluted plot enlivened by fetching bit players, especially Patty, who comes equipped with a backpack overflowing with wigs, glitter, multiple pairs of glasses, and enough chutzpah to make even Baby Rose Marie look sedate. [Library marketing; five-city tour.]--Bob Lunn, Kansas City, MO

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 12, 2018
The shooting death of American physicist David Moffitt and his wife, Rebecca, outside the Artemis Club, an exclusive London casino and art gallery, propels MWA Grand Master Grimes’s solid 24th mystery featuring Scotland Yard’s Det. Supt. Richard Jury (after 2014’s Vertigo 42). Jury reads about the crime in the newspaper the next day. Meanwhile, a gritty version of the Baker Street Irregulars, children who hang out at train stations and Heathrow and act as informants, have the shooter in their sights; 10-year-old Patty Haigh befriends the killer and accompanies him to Nairobi, Kenya, where Melrose Plant, one of Jury’s team, soon follows. Jury’s investigation centers on gem smuggling, tax dodging, and greed. The real mystery is how to find a cab drivers’ pub, the Knowledge, so secret that even Scotland Yard can’t force its patrons to reveal its location. Though the plot gets a bit muddled midway through, readers will appreciate the elements that have made this a long-running bestselling series, notably a complicated case and distinctive characters. Agent: Steve Sheppard, Cowen Debaets Abrahams & Sheppard.

February 1, 2018
Detective Superintendent Richard Jury (Vertigo 42, 2014, etc.) joins with the usual friends and relations and a covey of London black cab drivers to unravel a spectacularly public double murder.Moments after cabbie Robbie Parsons drops American astrophysicist David Moffit and his beautiful British wife, Rebecca, in front of the Artemis Club, the exclusive casino/art gallery run by enterprising Leonard Zane, a man steps out of nowhere and shoots the two visitors dead. Even more remarkably, he gets into Robbie's cab, takes it to Waterloo Station, and catches a train to Heathrow without breaking a sweat. Unbeknownst to his passenger, Robbie has alerted his buddies in the black-cab network, and one of them, Patty Haigh, follows the shooter, steals a ticket for his flight to Dubai, chats him up, and ends up traveling in the next first-class pod. Patty, the latest in a long line of Grimes' tough, unflappable, endlessly resourceful preteen female heroes, reflects of her companion, who's booked passage under the name Bushiri Banerjee, that "for somebody who shoots people, he was pretty nice." Meanwhile, back in London, Jury is dispatching his old friend Melrose Plant to Nairobi, where Banerjee has flown from Dubai, and planted antiques dealer Marshall Trueblood as a dealer in the Artemis Club while Jury himself tries to figure out why Banerjee felt the need to shoot both Moffits and how their murders might be connected to the remarkably coincidental shooting of one Danny Morrissey in the Metropole, the Reno hotel Zane also owned, eight years ago. Many more coincidences will follow--some actually coincidental, others not so much--seriously denting but never wrecking the mystery at the core of a whimsically digressive adventure in which Jury has to fight for attention, let alone resolution.Grimes' endlessly fertile imagination conjures up new people, places, and episodes that you'll want to hear all about however tangential they end up being to the dubious case that's supposed to tie them all together.

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May 28, 2018
West’s melodious British baritone smoothly sorts through the complicated plot and numerous characters in Grimes’s 24th Richard Jury mystery. Det. Supt. Richard Jury is hunting for the man who shot and killed American physicist David Moffitt and his wife, Rebecca, in front of London’s Artemis Club, a swanky art galley cum casino. The investigation leads Jury and his team to Africa following a tip from one of the kids in the Filth, a rough-and-tumble pack of kids, who spotted the murderer boarding a plane to Nairobi. West effortlessly transitions from one quirky character to the next. He gives delightful accents to British gentry such as Jury’s sidekick, Melrose Plant, as well as to Plant’s servants, Ruthven and Martha. He’s even credible as the boys and girls of the Filth, particularly 10-year-old Patty, a competent schemer who tails the murderer as far as Nairobi and Tanzania. West is just as convincing when providing the voice of the hip owner of the art galley as he is in rendering the cool and confident cabbie who knows the streets of London backwards and forwards. West’s mastery of Grimes’s wit, twisting plot, and zany characters will keep listeners hooked from start to finish. An Atlantic Monthly hardcover.

February 15, 2018
Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Grimes' twenty-fourth mystery starring Richard Jury gets off to a breakneck start, with London cab driver Robbie Parsons picking up, first, a well-heeled American couple and dropping them off at an exclusive casino. Robbie then witnesses the couple dropping to the ground, dead from gunshot wounds. His next passenger is the gunman, who orders Robbie to drive through London. Besides the fast action, it's fascinating to see how Robbie uses a London cabdriver's deep familiarity with the streets ( the Knowledge ) to keep himself alive. Things span out from here. The gunman escapes into Waterloo Station. Detective Superintendent Jury takes on the case, which moves into Tanzania, Nairobi, Reno, and a London pub. (Longtime Grimes readers will remember that there is always a pub connection.) The flaw in the mystery is that it goes too far afield from Jury's usual stomping grounds, mixing in some of the jumpier elements of spy thrillers with police procedure and somewhat blurring the impact of the action. Still, Jury's devoted readership will find much to enjoy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)