From Publishers Weekly
For Richard Jury, the death of his cousin—apparently his one link to his childhood—generates "an emptiness that he hadn't seen coming" and supplies an existential, melancholic subtext to this 19th outing for the New Scotland Yard detective (after 2002's The Grave Maurice). Bestseller Grimes's finely written, if at times baffling, novel is propelled by an unthinkably horrific crime: an unidentified five-year-old girl is shot dead in a London street. Her autopsy reveals sexual abuse and leads to a London pedophile ring. The girl may be connected to Flora, the abducted child of a particularly loathsome businessman, Viktor Baumann. Three years earlier, during a nasty custody battle with Baumann's ex-wife, four-year-old Flora was kidnapped near her home in Devon. When the unidentified body of a woman turns up on the estate of Flora's putative stepfather, Declan Scott, the convoluted plot begins to come together. Fans will welcome the appearance of Jury's gaggle of humorously eccentric friends and neighbors, including Melrose Plant, who goes undercover as a gardener to ferret out information. In the end, Grimes fails to connect the dots as well as she might have, but that won't prevent this engaging novel from hitting lots of bestseller lists. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
Grimes's latest Richard Jury mystery continues her long-standing series with the familiar figures of Jury and his friend, Melrose Plant. Sleuthing between Cornwall and London, Jury tries to link the disappearance and deaths of very young girls. Paul Hecht is a gifted narrator, offering a confidant, articulate performance of Cornwall gardeners, London businessmen, and country squires. But something's missing--perhaps it's the mostly subtle British accents and light characterizations. Grimes plays her characters to the hilt, yet Hecht seems to hold back, so the vocal portraits seem a little lackluster. The abridgment is good for the most part, but the ending seems to dissipate after a strong and intriguing build-up. R.F.W. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
His hospital experience (Grave Maurice, 2002) may still be fresh in his mind, but Scotland Yard's Richard Jury wastes no time in involving himself in another case, the murder of an anonymous five-year-old girl, shot in the back. Who could have done such a thing? When he learns that the child was found near a house frequented by pedophiles, he's convinced there's a link. His suspicions grow stronger when the man supposedly behind the operation turns out to be the father of a child who mysteriously disappeared three years before from a country estate. Intuition isn't proof, however, and Jury enlists the aid of his friend Melrose Plant, Lord Ardry, to help him work through the connections. Discussions frequently bring either or both to a local pub, called the Winds of Change. Grimes works in her usual complement of British literary allusions and smartly juxtaposes Plant's easygoing manner and sardonic wit (his unintentional ability to provoke contrariness in children and animals is laugh-out-loud funny) against Jury's somewhat solemn, ruminative personality. As it turns out, nothing is quite what it seems at the beginning in this stellar entry in an outstanding series. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Newsweek
One of the established masters of the genre.

The Wall Street Journal
[Grimes’s] gift for evoking mood and emotion is as keen as her talent for inventing a demanding puzzle.

USA Today
[Grimes] excels at creating a haunting atmosphere and characters both poignant and preposterous.

San Francisco Chronicle
Grimes is gifted at exploring the private, sometimes horrifying, yet utterly mundane thoughts of ordinary people.

Book Description
As he leans over the body of an unidentified five-year-old girl shot in the back on a shabby London street, Superintendent Richard Jury knows he’ll be facing one of the saddest investigations of his life. His colleague DI Johnny Blakeley, head of the pedophile unit of NSY, thinks he knows where this child came from—an iniquitous house on that same street, owned by well-known financier Viktor Baumann and fronted by a woman named Murchison. Blakeley has been trying to wreck their operation for a long time. While examining the body of an unidentified woman murdered in the gardens of Declan Scott’s estate, Angel Gate, Brian Macalvie, commander of the Devon and Cornwall police, realizes he’s been here before. Three years prior, Declan’s stepdaughter, four- year-old Flora, was abducted while she and her mother Mary were visiting the Lost Gardens of Heligan. Shortly after that, Mary Scott herself died, and Declan was devastated by the loss of his child and his wife. "He really doesn’t need a body in his garden," says Macalvie. Joined by the intrepid Melrose Plant, now a gardener at Angel Gate, Jury and Macalvie rake over the present and the past in a pub near Launceston called the Winds of Change. With one of their most serpentine investigations under way, all signs point to the guilt of Viktor Baumann, Mary Scott’s first husband and Flora’s father. But when no one in this case is exactly who he seems, how can Jury be sure?

About the Author
Martha Grimes is the bestselling author of eighteen Richard Jury mysteries and also the acclaimed fiction Foul Matter, Cold Flat Junction, Hotel Paradise, The End of the Pier, and The Train Now Departing.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

As he leans over the body of an unidentified five-year-old girl shot in the backon a shabby London street, Superintendent Richard Jury knows he'll be facing one of the saddest investigations of his life. His colleague DI Johnny Blakeley, head of the pedophile unit of NSY, thinks he knows where this child came from—an iniquitous house on that same street, owned by well-known financier Viktor Baumann and fronted by a woman named Murchison. Blakeley has been trying to wreck their operation for a long time.

While examining the body of an unidentified woman murdered in the gardens of Declan Scott's estate, Angel Gate, Brian Macalvie, commander of the Devon and Cornwall police, realizes he's been here before. Three years prior, Declan's stepdaughter, four- year-old Flora, was abducted while she and her mother Mary were visiting the Lost Gardens of Heligan. Shortly after that, Mary Scott herself died, and Declan was devastated by the loss of his child and his wife.

"He really doesn't need a body in his garden," says Macalvie.

Joined by the intrepid Melrose Plant, now a gardener at Angel Gate, Jury and Macalvie rake over the present and the past in a pub near Launceston called the Winds of Change. With one of their most serpentine investigations under way, all signs point to the guilt of Viktor Baumann, Mary Scott's first husband and Flora's father. But when no one in this case is exactly who he seems, how can Jury be sure?

FROM THE CRITICS

Marilyn Stasio - The New York Times

Grimes is a gorgeous writer whose lyrical evocation of the lost innocence of the past invests her strange stories with the aura of grown-up fairy tales.

Publishers Weekly

For Richard Jury, the death of his cousin-apparently his one link to his childhood-generates "an emptiness that he hadn't seen coming" and supplies an existential, melancholic subtext to this 19th outing for the New Scotland Yard detective (after 2002's The Grave Maurice). Bestseller Grimes's finely written, if at times baffling, novel is propelled by an unthinkably horrific crime: an unidentified five-year-old girl is shot dead in a London street. Her autopsy reveals sexual abuse and leads to a London pedophile ring. The girl may be connected to Flora, the abducted child of a particularly loathsome businessman, Viktor Baumann. Three years earlier, during a nasty custody battle with Baumann's ex-wife, four-year-old Flora was kidnapped near her home in Devon. When the unidentified body of a woman turns up on the estate of Flora's putative stepfather, Declan Scott, the convoluted plot begins to come together. Fans will welcome the appearance of Jury's gaggle of humorously eccentric friends and neighbors, including Melrose Plant, who goes undercover as a gardener to ferret out information. In the end, Grimes fails to connect the dots as well as she might have, but that won't prevent this engaging novel from hitting lots of bestseller lists. Agent, Peter Lampack. 8-city author tour. (Aug. 19) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

A dead child in the streets. And a dead woman on the grounds of an estate owned by Declan Scott, whose own child was abducted and whose wife subsequently died. Of course the two incidents connect in Jury's 19th case. An eight-city author tour. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

AudioFile