Vertigo 42: A Richard Jury Mystery

MWA Grandmaster Grimes pays tribute to Hitchcock in her middling 23rd mystery featuring London policeman Richard Jury (after 2010’s The Black Cat). Seventeen years after the discovery of heiress Tess Williamson’s body at the bottom of the terrace stairs at her Devon home, Tom Williamson still doesn’t believe that his wife’s death was accidental—and neither does Supt. Richard Jury, who suspects a link between Tess’s death and that of Hilda Palmer. Five years earlier, nine-year-old Hilda suffered a fatal fall into a drained swimming pool during a birthday party that Tess was hosting for a half dozen young friends. Meanwhile, Jury visits eccentric pal Melrose Plant in Northamptonshire, where he becomes sidetracked by a lost Staffordshire terrier and soon after by a fresh corpse. The plot lines eventually connect to a complex conundrum involving friendship, love, and betrayal. Readers who persevere past Jury’s confusing initial stay at the madcap Plant manse will be rewarded with an involving puzzle—right up to the frustratingly farfetched finale. (June)